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£50m office park is put on hold

by Betty Anderson
20/ 8/2008

DEVELOPERS have shelved a multi million pound "dream" office park on prime greenbelt land in Wilmslow blaming planners for the setback.

Rok Developments which aimed to build a plush £50million business park at Stamford Lodge, once the country house home of the Boddington family, claim the council has been dragging its heels costing the company a fortune.

The economic down turn has also had an impact on the decision to mothball the project.

The 34 acre site off Altrincham Road set in magnificent parkland was bought for £10 million two years ago from Legal and General in a deal bank rolled by RBS.

The vision was to create four brand new luxury office buildings and refurbish the magnificent country house, built for brewery boss Henry Boddington.

But not a brick has been laid and its future remains uncertain after Rok confirmed this week it no longer felt confident enough to proceed.

Development boss, Stuart Longbottom, said: "The biggest problem has been over planning permission. It has taken nearly two years to get planning, Macclesfield Borough Council has cost us a fortune.

"It has taken an unreasonable amount of time. In reality even six months ago or a year ago the project would have been underway by now.

"No company can afford that sort of delay, costs keep going up because of the delay. It is £12m now with interest and that means at the end of the day we need to be selling the offices for more and that may not be possible in this climate.

"So, it is fair to say that we are a bit fed up with MBC."

Mr Longbottom added: "It’s not going ahead in the short term. It’s still a good development site, but there are not an awful lot of occupiers out there. We did not feel confident starting the development."

Planners hit back saying Rok could have got on with the scheme sooner.

Chief planning officer John Knight said: "The application was submitted in May 2007 and planning permission was granted in August 2007 - that is normal procedure.

"It was approved in February 2008 but then needed a legal agreement because there were highways works which is standard when involving a multi million pound project.

"They could have started the scheme. The site was sold with planning permission two years ago. They decided to change it .

"It’s not fair to direct criticism on the council."

Recently Rok group said it was cutting back around 200 jobs out of its 5,500 workforce nationwide.

Stamford Lodge was the former headquarters of Huntingdon Life Sciences which bought the site after Ceiba Geigi vacated.

When it was put up for sale by Legal and General Rok stepped in offering more than £10m to develop a prestige 21st century business park of 220,000 sq ft of quality space.

As part of the scheme the house and gardens were to be returned to their prime.

Recently buildings on the site were demolished as work on the first phase was due to start soon.