The Trafford College Group invite you to provide feedback on exciting development proposals at Cheadle College. The proposals will provide a new college building with purpose-built, high-quality facilities for students and staff. On completion of the new building the existing college buildings would be demolished, providing an opportunity for new family homes. Sports facilities will be retained and enhanced on site.
A planning application is due to be submitted in June 2023. To help shape the final scheme, we are keen to hear the views of students, staff, parents and those that live and work nearby.
The current building footprint is too large for the College’s requirements, and it is highly inefficient in terms of sustainability and energy.
The facilities are now dated and in need of refurbishment to bring the building up to modern standards. The teaching spaces require modernisation and reconfiguration to meet current future teaching needs.
This cannot viably and practically be achieved with the ageing current buildings and therefore there is an exciting opportunity to build a new college with high quality facilities that can meet the needs of each department, greatly improving the quality of educational facilities for students.
The College has been awarded £20 million of government funding to bring forward the proposals, and in addition £7m is being invested by the Trafford College Group.
The proposed £27 million redevelopment will provide a new purpose-built college set over two and three storeys, providing specialist teaching spaces and flexible outside space.
Positioned in the north of the campus, the new college building will have an external piazza fronting onto Cheadle Road.
The project team has engaged closely with the local authority when developing the design, massing, position and materiality of the new campus development. The new building comprises two teaching wings either side of a central heartspace.
The new college building is proposed in the northernmost part of the site, in an area currently used for informal football. The College will be positioned to the west of the existing vehicular access and will retain street presence for wayfinding.
The north wing is three storeys and houses SEND on the first two floors – Choices at ground floor with dedicated access to external spaces, and Progression on the first floor. The top floor is home to the Health and Social Care department, which incorporates general teaching, early years training provision and a simulation ward. Three of the general teaching spaces are interconnected via folding partitions to create a large, flexible learning environment for exams and larger group work. The south wing steps down to two storeys, with staff, administration and student services functions at ground floor, plus the refectory and kitchen. The first floor includes further teaching accommodation including a pair of fully serviced science labs.
The triple height atrium runs from east to west and provides the main entrance to the building at the eastern end, splaying outwards to the west and culminating in a double height learning resource centre. Within the heart of the atrium at ground floor level sits the student services area, highly visible, welcoming and easily accessible. The feature stair runs through this atrium and connects to all levels of the building, with link bridges connecting the north and south wings. Adjacent to the main entrance is the circulation lift, providing access to all floors.
The existing sports barn layout remains largely unchanged, with the exception of the newly created entrance and vertical circulation core.
A simple palette of materials has been selected for the new building, comprising a light grey multi brick with copper coloured anodic powder coated metal detailing to window & curtain wall frames, louvres, corrugated rain-screen panels, flashings, roof enclosures and balustrades. Considered brickwork detailing within the bays enhances and frames the regular trabeated façade design. The existing retained sports hall is predominantly brick clad, with either a buff or orange/red finish.
The proposal is to re-clad the west gable elevation with the copper PPC aluminium rainscreen panels and construct the new entrance using the same grey brick as the new build, to create a unified appearance to both buildings.
A comprehensive landscape scheme is proposed that will create useable outdoor spaces for students and staff. The ground floor classrooms in the north will lead out to a landscaped garden with space for food growing and a woodland area with native species planting.
To the south of the new college is an area for outdoor dining and socialising that has a structured landscape plan with stairs leading down to an area of natural turf playing field, an area of retained scrub (the former redgra pitch) and the new artificial pitch.
In the south-eastern corner of the site is a horticultural area for planting and the greenhouse. The horticulture area is retained in the existing position to minimise disruption to the course provision.
There will also be tree planting and buffer planting around the boundary of the site.
There will be spaces that the students can use throughout the day, such as a growing space, kitchen garden outside dining area and seating plaza.
The existing playing field comprises just under a hectare of grass playing field which is used by the college for football over the summer months. Due to the pitch condition, the college use external facilities for their students over the winter months.
There are two manholes in the southern grass playing field which make the area unsafe to play on and effectively cut off the southernmost area. It is proposed that the manholes are relocated as part of this proposed to extend the area of useable playing field southwards.
The proposal will also provide an artificial all-weather pitch in the south-west of the site. This area has not been used for many years and as seen in the images below, is overgrown and cannot be used for sport.
The proposal will deliver a significant investment to provide an artificial pitch in this area. The area of playing field where the new college will be built will be re-provided through the artificial pitch. The benefit for the college is that it can be played on all year round and the sports curriculum can be accommodated on site without the need for using community facilities.
The sports pitches will be available for student use only and no floodlighting is proposed.
The sports hall, gym and changing facilities at ground floor will be retained and improved as part of the development proposal. The upper floors are currently used as sport teaching spaces and will be modernised to provide two sports classrooms and a dance studio
The area of surplus college buildings will be repurposed to make best use of the urban land. The application will seek planning permission for the principle of residential development only. No details of the scale, massing, access or landscaping will be provided at this stage. The college does not have the expertise to design or build out a residential development, and so a housebuilder would develop the detailed plans and layouts for the residential scheme.
The application will provide technical assessments on the principle of up to 63 homes being built out on the site. The proposal will set certain parameters for the future homes, but the detail will be assessed through subsequent applications (Reserved Matters) made to Stockport Council’s Planning Department.
An illustrative layout has been prepared that shows how the scheme could come forward, but this is indicative only at this stage. The future scheme has the opportunity to provide a mix of homes, to help ease the pressure on housing in the area. This scheme will greatly assist in improving the local housing offer and be of significant benefit to those in the local community struggling with the current shortage of new homes.
The proposed layout plan below shows the overall planning layout, with the new College and playing field are in the western part of the site, with new homes proposed in the east.
The existing access to the site from the A5149 Cheadle Road will be retained and used for the new development. This access will continue to be used by all vehicles and pedestrians accessing the College.
New gates would be provided across the access road and footways, offset from the residential access. Beyond the gates the College propose to create a high quality environment with priority given to pedestrians over vehicles. In this context the first feature would be a wide raised crossing of the access road linking the new building with the existing and the car parking.
The space between the existing building (which is the sports hall) and the access road would be hard landscaped and would accommodate the cycle parking.
The future College will provide courses for high needs students who will have specific access requirements. A dedicated drop off and pick up area will be provided to the south of the building, for these students.
The existing rear college car parking would be retained and new parking proposed to the south. In total 162 spaces would be provided (122 exclusively for the use of the College). Disabled parking spaces, cycle parking and Electric Vehicle charging points will be provided. Car parking surveys have been undertaken to inform the level of parking proposed at the college.
A highways consultant has been appointed to advise on the highways safety of the new vehicular accesses, the level of parking provision and also the highways and traffic impacts that could arise from the residential development.
The highways consultant is liaising directly with the local highways authority regarding the approach to the vehicular access, to ensure that an appropriate and safe access is provided for users of the College and new residents.
A safety audit is being prepared in accordance with guidance from the local highways authority.
Traffic modelling has been undertaken that concludes that there would be a modest increase in trip generation from the new college, however the results of the traffic modelling conclude that the traffic generated by the proposed residential development would not materially affect the operation of the site access onto Cheadle Road or junctions further afield. A summary of the results are included in the table below.
Table 1: Potential Increase in College Trip Generation
| Morning Peak Hour 08:00 to 09:00 | College / Schools Peak 15:00 to 16:00 | Evening Access Paek 16:00 to 17:00 | |||
In | Out | In | Out | In | Out | |
Existing | 81 | 53 | 62 | 111 | 26 | 55 |
5% Increase | 4 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 1 | 3 |
Table 2: Vehicle Trip Generation from Proposed Residential Development
| Morning Peak Hour 08:00 to 09:00 | College / Schools Peak 15:00 to 16:00 | Evening Access Paek 16:00 to 17:00 | |||
In | Out | In | Out | In | Out | |
Vehicle movements | 8 | 21 | 14 | 12 | 14 | 8 |
The existing college building will continue teaching as the new college is under construction.
Once the new college is constructed and fully operational, students would transfer across, allowing the existing college to then be demolished, making way for new family homes to be built on the previously developed area.
The planning application will therefore be a “hybrid” application, where details of the college will be sought in full and outline planning permission will be sought for residential development for up to 63 homes on the former college footprint. The land would be sold to a housebuilder who would then go on to apply for details of the scheme (layout, scale, massing, landscaping and access) through subsequent reserved matters applications.
We are seeking feedback from the local community, staff, students, workers and stakeholders on the draft proposals, before a planning application is submitted to Stockport Council in the near future. The planning application will be supported by a wide range of reports and assessments which will be publicly available on the council’s website following submission of the application in due course.
If planning permission is granted, we would look to start construction of the College in 2023. Details of the residential element would be worked up and submitted to the council by a housebuilder.
We are keen to hear your views to help shape the proposed development. Your views are important to us and we hope you will take a few minutes to complete the online questionnaire which can be accessed in the link below. Alternatively, you can email your comments or queries to UKPlanningComments@wsp.com.
We are keen to reach as many people as possible. Residents and businesses nearest to the site have received notification letters via Royal Mail and we have also reached out to local politicians. Staff and students have also been invited to provide feedback on the proposals.
We will also be holding a drop-in session on Tuesday 6th June between 16:00 – 19:00 at Cheadle College, Cheadle Road, Cheadle Hulme, Cheadle SK8 5HA. The project team will be on hand to answer any questions you might have on the day.
Please ensure your feedback reaches us no later than Sunday 11th June 2023. There will be a further opportunity to provide your views directly to Stockport Council once the planning application is submitted later this year.
