A £1.3bn scheme with 3,300 homes and what would be the tallest tower in the UK outside London is going back before Salford’s planning committee. Not because of the height, the density or the design, but because of a directorship. As Place North West reported, campaigners lodged a formal complaint citing a conflict of interest.
The scheme
Henley Investment Management’s redevelopment of Regent Retail Park covers eight acres, replacing 118,000 sq ft of existing retail with around 100,000 sq ft of new retail across 10 buildings, topped by a 78-storey tower. It was announced in 2023 and approved last November.
What went wrong procedurally
The Save Regent Retail Park group identified that planning committee chair Cllr Phil Cusack was, at the time of the November approval, listed as a director of Derive, Salford City Council’s affordable housing company. Derive could potentially be involved in delivering the scheme’s social housing element. Cusack has since resigned the directorship.
Here is the awkward irony. The conflict arises from the 660 social rent homes Henley committed to, roughly a quarter of the total. That commitment was central to the scheme winning approval in the first place. The best thing about the application is what triggered the challenge to it.
Why the process point is not a technicality
It is tempting to dismiss this as procedural noise holding up 3,300 badly needed homes. Resist that. Planning committees hold quasi-judicial powers, and the legitimacy of their decisions rests entirely on the perception that they were taken impartially. A chair with a directorship in a company that could benefit from the outcome is exactly the situation the rules exist to prevent, whether or not it influenced anything.
Getting this wrong is also expensive. A decision vulnerable to judicial review is worth less than a decision taken again properly, and the delay from redetermination is shorter than the delay from losing in the High Court.
What the campaigners still object to
Beyond the procedure, the group maintains substantive objections: whether the affordable housing is genuinely deliverable, parking provision, and the loss of retail floorspace. Local resident Miranda Clarke said “the reversal of the decision shows the strength of our community when we stand together.”
The deliverability question is the serious one. Affordable housing commitments in tall building schemes have a track record of being renegotiated downwards at reserved matters or on viability grounds once the market shifts. Six hundred and sixty social rent homes would be a genuinely significant contribution to Salford. Watching whether that number survives to completion is the right thing to hold the developer to.
Henley’s position
The developer said it is “aware of the council’s internal procedural issue which is frustrating, but we have a close ongoing dialogue and they are keeping us updated.” That is about as relaxed as a developer can sound while an approved consent is reopened.
The site was allocated for redevelopment in the local plan, so the principle of development is established. The likeliest outcome is that the committee reconsiders and approves it again, properly constituted. The useful outcome would be if the second look tests the affordable housing deliverability harder than the first one did.
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