Royal London submits revised plans for new office development and over 1000 parking spaces

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Royal London Group is on track to complete its move from Wilmslow to Alderley Park during 2020, when around 1,200 members of staff will relocate from Royal London House and other buildings on the Wilmslow campus.

However, the company says it remains committed to delivering its vision for a 'living campus', creating 'outstanding places to live, work and relax, easily accessible to local residents by foot, cycle and public transport' at its former home on Alderley Road.

As part of the masterplan, Royal London has submitted an outline planning application for up to 17,000sqm of new office development and up to 1,100 car parking spaces along with the creation of new pedestrian and cycle routes.

This new application is a renewal of the previously approved outline office application (reference 16/2314M), but with smaller buildings to provide more flexible accommodation, designed to appeal to companies of varying sizes.

Vehicle access to and from the new buildings will continue to be via the existing entrance and exit junctions on Alderley Road.

The application site sits to the east of the existing Royal London campus and will accommodate four separate office buildings which are envisaged as being 3 storey office buildings with roof top planting.

This part of the campus will be accessed from a new roundabout, with a new internal road running through the centre of the development from which connections into the car parks are created. Whilst new landscape features such as lakes and ponds could be located near the entry points to enhance the arrival experience at the site.

Royal London were granted planning permission in 2016 for a new office development at their Alderley Road campus. However, in October 2017 - having considered a range of options for the future - the company announced it would be moving out of Wilmslow, from their current site at Alderley Road to Alderley Park.

In March 2018, Royal London were granting planning permission for up to 60 homes on land opposite the Royal London Campus, to the west of Alderley Road, and 120 homes, along with the access roads and landscaping, on the northern part of Royal London campus.

Royal London says no construction work is expected to commence until after they have moved to Alderley Park.

The plans can be viewed on the Cheshire East Council planning portal by searching for planning reference 19/3420M. The last date for submitting comments is 12th September and a decision is expected by 12th November.

Tags:
Planning Applications, Royal London
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Comments

Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.

Rick Andrews
Friday 16th August 2019 at 9:17 pm
Well, that’s the end of any green space between Wilmslow and Alderley Edge. More traffic pollution and CEC will spend the revenue from the new offices and houses elsewhere. Do we really need more offices? Royal London wins and local residents lose again. Time to move away.
Pete Taylor
Saturday 17th August 2019 at 7:02 am
Good question Rick. RL are currently advertising offices to rent; that is before they move out. This has been the case for as long as anyone can remember.
So, when they do move out, all their offices plus the currently empty ones will be vacant. Is there any point in building even more empty offices?
For the best part of two weeks they have been pumping floodwater off the site after two inundations, not perhaps an ideal site for building on?
Roger Bagguley
Sunday 18th August 2019 at 6:10 pm
1000 car parking spaces. Will this mean an extra 1000 cars moving in and around Wilmslow or is there a contribution here towards solving the current car parking problem as a gift to the long suffering people of our town?
Roger Bagguley
Wednesday 21st August 2019 at 5:56 pm
I am running out of the will to live on this on going saga of Royal London but will repeat again that this site East of Alderley Road offers the one and only chance for CEC to solve forever the access problems suffered at Wilmslow High School as well as the parking issues allied to this suffered by neighbours of the school. Maybe the new regime will listen where the old failed to do. The solution involves striking an access to the site from the A34 bypass offering a one way system through the school. In addition, for health and safety reasons, a development at Royal London demands another access to the one proposed from Alderley Road.
Simon Worthington
Thursday 22nd August 2019 at 8:35 am
Perhaps a simple answer after we have been completely mislead and lied to continually by Royal London.
East Cheshire council to refuse and remove all current and intended planning, compulsorily purchase the site at knock down price and build a sixth form campus releasing space at the current (over full) school site!!!
Pete Taylor
Thursday 22nd August 2019 at 8:08 pm
@ Roger and Simon; this has gone beyond farce. There are Covenants on this land stretching back over a couple of hundred years. The last “honest” owner of this site was ICI. They stood by what had gone before.
Since that time we have had the “property-development” arms of Refuge Assurance, United Friendly and, currently, Royal London, falling over themselves trying to make a fast buck instead of doing the right thing by law.
This really is a last chance to produce a green solution; empty office space has been advertised for 25+ years, so why build more? There is an opportunity to provide much-needed parking space and plant thousands of trees.
Cheshire East Council has declared a climate emergency. Are they just jumping on a trendy bandwagon, or are they serious?
Time to review planning consents given by the previous (seven ongoing Police investigations) and cut free from the, frankly, corrupt previous regime.
When it’s gone... you know the rest.
Jon Newell
Thursday 29th August 2019 at 4:57 pm
While it is by no means my area of expertise, the surveyors with whom I used to work tell me that 17,000 sq m of space (note, these are sq m not sq ft, with which those of my generation are more familiar) would be expected to house approx 4,200 people. Apparently, current thinking is that each work place needs 3.7 sq m per person. If there are only to be 1.100 parking spaces it will not be enough.
It will make the current parking issues even worse.
We can never expect to provide a parking place foe each employee - or even get close to it - so the answer has to be a return of local bus services running on 15 minute intervals for 15 hours each day. Slim hope!
Jon Newell
Friday 30th August 2019 at 6:40 am
Got my conversion wrong. 17000 sq metres should provide space for about 1500 workers. Still an issue but not as extreme as I first thought.