Preston housing scheme on hold

Ambitious plans to build almost 400 new homes on the outskirts of Preston City Centre appear to have been put on long-term hold.

Permission was granted for the redevelopment of the former Horrocks Mill site, off Queen Street, in December 2023.

Preston City Council approved a blueprint from social housing provider Onward Homes for up to 380 dwellings – a mix of townhouses and apartments – to be created on the derelict plot.

At the planning committee meeting where the proposal was given the green light, the agent acting on behalf of the application said it was hoped that “with a fair wind”, building work would begin during 2025.

However, not only has that ambition not come to fruition, but now Onward has submitted a bid for the land to continue being used as a temporary car park.

The organisation has not yet responded to a question from the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) about what that move means for the timeframe for its housing plans, which it said after permission was granted would “further improv[e] the quality and choice of affordable housing in this great northern city”.

However, the city council – which planned to enter into a deal to purchase up to 20 of the properties as part of its aim to start providing council housing again in Preston – says it has now been forced to look elsewhere in pursuit of that project, suggesting that the hold-up is set to be a significant one.

Cllr Valerie Wise, cabinet member for community wealth building, told the LDRS: “Given the Horrocks Mill development is unlikely to come forward in the timescales as planned, the council are working on other options to purchase homes for council housing. We will make an announcement on this in the new year.”

Preston City Council’s entire housing portfolio of 6,500 properties was transferred to a social landlord, Community Gateway Association, in 2005 after a vote in support of the move from tenants at the time. In doing so, the authority joined many others across the country which, by the 2000s, were bringing the curtain down on traditional council housing altogether.

The current permission for the car park on the Horrocks Mill land – which is bound by Queen Street, Church Street and Grimshaw Street, close to the Queens Retail Park – expires next year.

The application to extend that use does specify how long it is intended to continue for, but it refers to it being a proposed renewal of the approval currently in place, which was for a period of five years.

However, a delay of any description is another blow to the city council’s vision to regenerate the Stoneygate area on the fringe of the city centre.

The site sits just yards from the one-time Dryden Mill plot, where plans for 469 apartments – spread over six tower blocks up to 16 storeys high – were approved in March 2023.

Earlier this year, it emerged that the company behind that proposal – Stoneygate Living Limited – did not believe it would get off the ground within the next three years.  It requested that part of the land be used as open storage in the interim, but the city council refused.

The Horrocks Mill site was home to the Horrocks Yard Works until most of the buildings associated with the late 18th-century cotton factory were flattened in 1965.