14 May Ancoats Dispensary Transformation to Affordable Apartments Imminent
Manchester is seeing regeneration at every corner of the ever-growing city so often referred to as the capital of the North, and one of the latest examples of this comes from the iconic Ancoats Dispensary building.
The building is a grade II listed building and is truly remarkable visually speaking, however, in recent years, the integrity of the building has been diminishing as campaigners have been trying to save and restore it without demolition or modernisation.
It was built back in 1874 as a means to aid the hospital for dispensary purposes and is a location in Ancoats at Old Mill Street. The building has sat for over 30 years unused, which of course has an array of negative repercussions, and has since been saved from proposed hotels, apartments, and multiple other propositions which would change the building entirely.
As a part of the £1 Billion Ancoats & Islington regeneration project taking place under Manchester Council and Manchester City Owners, the Abu Dhabi United Group, developer Great Places have stepped in to incorporate affordable housing into the building. That will be in the form of 39 on and two bedroomed apartments in line with Manchester Council and Homes England, helping keep the city accessible and affordable to all that live there.
Plans have been formally submitted with these proposed changes at their centre. The plans show how the development is planning to restore and maintain the façade of the premise, helping to save and highlight the significance of the Victorian architecture without compromising where unnecessary.
The Ancoats Dispensary Trust was formed by members of the public in order to try and fundraise money for the restoration of the building themselves, and after sadly failing to do so to the level required, even they have praised the development plans for being so sensitive to the building’s history and former glory.
The deterioration of the building does of course also mean that restoration and rebuilding do still need to take place however as some areas of the structure are completely unsafe. This will combine modern building with the iconic image to maintain an overall sympathetic structure.