Royal London revises plans for new office space at Alderley Road campus

by Lisa Reeves

Monday 15^th July 2019

Mon 15^th Jul 2019

Royal London says it remains committed to delivering its vision for a 'living campus', following its move from Wilmslow to Alderley Park in 2020.

Royal London Asset Management has prepared an outline planning application for the development of new office space on land to the east of the current campus. The planning consent granted in 2016 for new office space permits development of 17,000 sq m of new office accommodation with 1,100 car parking spaces.

The new planning application seeks a renewal of the current consent but with smaller buildings capable of offering 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 has been submitted to Cheshire East Council today (Monday, 15th July), but no construction work is expected to commence until after Royal London has moved to Alderley Park.

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 November 2017, Royal London submitted two planning applications for homes at its site on Alderley Road.

The first application is for up to 60 homes on land opposite the Royal London Campus, to the west of Alderley Road and the second application is for 120 homes, along with the access roads and landscaping, on the northern part of Royal London campus.

Both applications were approved by the Strategic Planning Board in March 2018 subject to the completion of a Section 106 Agreement.

The new Royal London planning application has not been added to the Cheshire East Planning portal yet, we will publish the planning reference once it has been made available.

Tags:: Royal London

Comments

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

Roger Bagguley

Wednesday 17^th July 2019 at 9:39 am

It is noted that yet again in this revised plan no attempt is made to resolve the access issue at Wilmslow High School and for neighbours of the school. As often asserted by RoW the access needs to be off the A34 bypass serving both of the Royal London developments on this site as well as providing for a one way system serving the school.

Surely the purpose of a bypass is to relieve traffic issues within a town.

David Smith

Thursday 18^th July 2019 at 12:04 pm

I don't think we need any of this. It puts too much pressure on the existing infrastructure and is probably providing jobs for people who don't live around here and so will clog our roads up even more.
To my mind it only has the benefit of making money for the developers. Can someone help and make me understand a good reason as to why this should be allowed?

Friday 19^th July 2019 at 11:18 am

...and another thing - car parking everywhere from now on HAS to be VERTICAL. We cannot go on having car parking taking up so much land on one level and at airports in particular where car parks are spreading even beyond. Manchester airport car parks are close to the Cheshire East boundary and I would like to know what moves are being made to snap up nice farmland in our Lacey Green ward with ‘approval’ and agreement of our local councillor - Don Stockton - who together with councillor Iain Macfarlane represent Cheshire East on the Manchester Airport Consultative Committee. Wilmslow Town Council member Chetan Katre also represents this area on the committee. It is now becoming an option to park a vehicle anywhere in Wilmslow where there are no yellow lines and take a taxi to the airport. It is even good value to park in the Wilmslow long-stay car park and walk across to the station to go by train to the airport. I understand there are plans for an airport car park in the Stanley Green/Handforth Dean area. I guess it is possible to park there too or in the John Lewis/Sainsbury’s car park, as I don’t suppose anyone does a check on how long a vehicle stays there.
So just how horizontal is the 1,100-space Royal London car park planned to be?

Jon Newell

Friday 19^th July 2019 at 1:38 pm

IThe comments about “parking” should really be comments about public transport.
Those planning office and other commercial space do not, and never have, included a parking place for everyone who works in the office premises. I know there will be guidelines but I doubt the guidance ever extended to more than one space per 20 or so employees. I worked in central Manchester for over 30 years and our office space leases never included access to car parking for more than 5% of our work force.

The current issues in Wilmslow are really caused by a lack of public transport which, to be effective, needs to reflect modern working practices. It needs to cover 7am to 9pm. Much to my personal regret, the old 9 to 5 has been consigned to the past.

Those planning office space over the last 30 years were allowed to believe that public transport would remain available. They were wrong because “austerity” intervened public transport was the easy target.