Plans have been submitted for a retail and leisure development on 15-acre derelict land in Handforth comprising of retail units, cafes and restaurants, a gym and a hotel.
Alderley Edge based developer Consolidated Property Group (CPG) have submitted the proposals to Cheshire East Council for Phase 2 and 3 of Handforth Dean Shopping Park.
Following a public exhibition, held in Handforth in December last year, CPG say there was overwhelming public support for the proposals which could create up to 1,200 jobs, with a response rate of 80% of local people saying they wanted it to go ahead.
Martin Ridgway, Group Managing Director at CPG, comments: "It was a pleasure to have the opportunity to speak with local people about our plans. Residents overwhelmingly said they would be thrilled to have such a modern high-quality destination which provides jobs and choice for local people.
"We are delighted to be working with Engine of the North in putting forward this landmark scheme, which will put to good use this derelict land as well as generating up to c£3.8m pa in business rates for the Council when fully let."
Cheshire East Council has already approved plans for a Next store on the site, which began construction in December 2015 and is due to open in October 2016. The rest of the 15-acre site would be developed over two phases.
If approved by the Council's planning committee the restaurants have a target opening date of Spring 2017 and the shops and other facilities have a target opening date of Autumn 2018.
The second phase of the scheme consists of a number of stand-alone units, including restaurants, fast food and coffee drive throughs. The scheme includes two 4,000 sq ft restaurants with 45 parking spaces, a two storey drive through with 44 parking spaces and two single storey drive throughs with 42 parking spaces.
The retail element of the scheme forms the third phase of CPG's masterplan for the site and consists of 340,000 sq ft of retail and leisure space, along with a 66 bed hotel. The two and three storey retail units vary in size from 5,000 sq ft to 35,000 sq ft. They are arranged in an L shape around 424 parking spaces.
The site is situated between Earl Road and the A34, adjacent to Handforth Dean Retail Park, and has been vacant since 2010, having previously been occupied by a park and ride facility for Manchester Airport with 3000 spaces.
As part of the Phase 1 works for the Next store a new access road is to be built from the roundabout in the South East corner which is currently shared with the retail park to the south. The proposal is for an extension to this access road and, as part of the third phase of development, they propose to build an additional lane and widen the junction to mitigate any possible traffic congestion on the site.
In total the scheme includes 557 car parking spaces, 39 of which will be disability spaces, 60 cycle spaces and 6 electric charging points.
The planning application can be viewed on the Cheshire East Council website by searching for planning reference 16/0138M.
The last date for submitting comments is 25th February and a decision is expected by 18th April.
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