Social impact developers Capital&Centric are planning a community of design-led suburban Build to Rent townhouses on a cluster of brownfield sites in Bolton town centre.
Split across several plots, Neighbourhood Bolton will see the Manchester-based team masterplan the area around the town’s train and bus stations. They will bring forward plans for the first few areas totalling 6.2 acres on and around Bradshawgate to alleviate pressure on greenfield sites.
This is Capital&Centric’s second collaboration with Bolton Council, with work on the apartment-led Farnworth Green already underway – a project to reboot Farnworth centre with shops, cafés, public green spaces and 97 apartments and houses.
Neighbourhood Bolton is intended to inspire a new breed of town centre communities, with design-led townhouses set around green streets. Initial ideas are for integrated community amenity facilities and workspaces. Amenities will be focused on creating communities as well as health and wellbeing. Neighbourhood Bolton is intended to kick-start wider regeneration of the whole area, including surrounding sites.
“Bolton deserves sustained investment. The latest levelling up news was obviously disappointing, but we believe in Bolton’s future. Just a week or so later, we’re here announcing our second local project to both unlock investment and bring about positive change.
“Loads of new build homes are a pastiche of the past and designed to maintain the status quo. But there’s got to be an alternative. We want to re-write the rules on suburban living and deliver homes with a design-led edge on brownfield sites that many write off as being too difficult.
“Neighbourhood Bolton will be our first such community of its kind, one that hopefully provides an antidote to what’s on today’s market. It’ll show how we can take key, underused sites in well-connected towns like Bolton and write a new chapter for town centre living.”
Tim Heatley, Co-Founder, Capital&Centric
The project is part of Capital&Centric’s mission to create liveable town centres, delivering communities that help write a new chapter for town centres as places to live with good transport links. With initial design ongoing, planning applications for the first Neighbourhood Bolton sites are planned for submission later this year.
“This investment is a huge vote of confidence in Bolton town centre, and in the council’s regeneration plans. As shopping habits change, we are working to bring in a mixture of residential, leisure and hospitality alongside the retail offer.“Not only will Neighbourhood Bolton deliver much-needed homes on brownfield sites, but it will play a vital role in making our town centre a more vibrant place to live, work and visit. It will also complement the existing regeneration projects in the town centre and beyond.”
Cllr Martyn Cox, Bolton Council Leader
Capital&Centric’s residential portfolio features a mix of new build apartments and restorations of historic mills and warehouses, including Kampus, Crusader and Phoenix in Manchester, and Eyewitness Works in Sheffield – which is set to feature on a new Channel 4 primetime series ‘The Big Interiors Battle’.
“Good design and aspirational new build homes don’t need to be the preserve of city centres or affluent cul-de-sacs. With the right support and partnership, places like Bolton can embrace a new wave of town centre residents desperately looking for more choice in Greater Manchester’s rental market.”
Tim Heatley, Co-Founder, Capital&Centric
