Eckersley Mill, Wigan

The Heaton Group

This site is adjacent to the iconic Wigan Pier and is one of the largest brownfield sites in Greater Manchester, having capacity to accommodate 800 homes, offices, a hotel, commercial and leisure space. It is a highly complex site with a number of delivery challenges including extensive up-front infrastructure, ground remediation, utilities upgrades, demolition and conversion of listed mills. Acting for the landowner/developer (the Heaton Group) Hive were commissioned to provide project management, governance, delivery and infrastructure funding advice.

Delivery

Having established an agreed project governance structure through close working with Wigan Council, Homes England and Historic England, Hive identified a suitable funding programme through the Greater Manchester Combined Authority Brownfield Land Fund (BLF). Working to a very tight timescale Hive led the funding bid, undertaking the following workstreams: Project management of multi-disciplinary team to assimilate the range of work to support the bid; Project plan and programme to co-ordinate work to meet the challenging deadline; Bid strategy and positioning / liaison with GMCA; Formulation of high-level business case, including completion of a report, proforma and meeting related funding criteria requirements; and Negotiation with the funding body on the grant funding agreement.

Designing a detailed strategy and programme to unlock 48 residential sites with a capacity of 3,500+ new homes.
Production of a PID, implementation plan, site prioritisation matrix, area based promotion and marketing documents, and individual proformas for each site including an analysis of the interventions required
A landowner engagement strategy and extensive engagement with funding bodies (including Homes England) aimed at specifically addressing viability challenges.
Drafting an investment prospectus and launch event to directly market the sites to developers.

Outcome

The outcome was a successful bid where we successfully securing £1.8m of BLF, with feedback from the funding body that the bid was one of the most comprehensive, robust and credible that they had seen. The development has now commenced, unlocking a site which has been stalled for decades.

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2020 Winner of the national Planning Awards Editors Choice Award for best overall project and the Increased Housing Delivery category for Preston City Living Strategy

2020 Winner of the Spatial Planning and Plan-Making award in the RTPI North West Regional Awards for Planning Excellence for the Preston City Living Strategy

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