Barnes Village, Cheadle, Stockport

Fred Done

Barnes Hospital is located in Cheadle, Stockport and comprised the Listed main building surrounded by areas of bare ground with ephemeral vegetation and woodland. The site covered an area of approximately 7 hectares. Located on the border with Manchester, the site is bounded by a motorway and slip road to the north and east by the M60 slip road; the south by a railway line and residential development beyond and to the west by the major dual carriageway road.

Barnes Hospital had been vacant since 1999 when it became surplus to requirements and was closed. The building had no dedicated viable use and ownership of the site had regularly changed. Since 2000, a total of 16 planning applications and accompanying applications for listed building consent had been submitted to Stockport Council for consideration, the majority of which have sought or been associated with schemes of repair and conversion of the listed building, supported by residential based enabling development on the wider site. None of these proposals have progressed.

Due to the length of vacancy and regularly changing ownership, the Listed building had been subjected to persistent and prolonged acts of vandalism. The extent of physical decline was severe with parts of the building at risk of collapse. There was an urgent need to establish a comprehensive and viable quantum and type of enabling development that would secure the repair and long-term viable use of the heritage asset.

The setting of Barnes Hospital has profoundly changed since the construction of the motorway network and other transport infrastructure into the surrounding landscape.

Working closely with the local planning department, a master plan evolved that placed the refurbishment of the Grade 3 listed Hospital as the centre piece of an entirely residential development; the creation of a new suburban village based on a range of dwelling types…apartments and houses…. to appeal to a wide range of potential occupiers.

The development proposal provided 300 residential units in total; 78 no. apartments in the Listed Hospital; 100 no. new build apartments; 59 RSL no. apartments and 63 no. houses.