Hundreds of town centre homes planned in Newcastle-under-Lyme

Around 275 homes are being proposed for three brownfield sites in Newcastle town centre.

Three interlinked developments at the Ryecroft, York Place and the Midway will have also shops, offices and a hotel, as well as new public spaces and a possible music venue.

Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council’s Cabinet, which is overseeing the town centre regeneration, is now seeking permission to press ahead with the £2.65 million to fund the next steps.

Simon Tagg, Leader of Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council, said: “These three developments will change the town’s landscape, with hundreds of people living in new homes on previously used brownfield sites in the heart of Newcastle.

“The developments will be aimed primarily at young professionals, families and older people ‘down-sizing’, which in turn will lead to increased footfall in the town centre, supporting local shops, restaurants and businesses day and night.”

Work has already begun preparing the Ryecroft site for the first step, which will be the 450 space, multi-storey Castle Car Park. Once that is open the Midway car park will be closed and preparatory work will begin there. Historically, houses used to stand on both sites.

The progress report to Cabinet says that the York Place work will begin soon, with structures stripped back to their core in preparation for rebuilding. This development includes 47 one and two-bed apartments, plus commercial space and room for the Astley Performing Arts Centre.

This project also includes open space to link through to Ironmarket and plans for The Bulls Head, owned by Market Drayton brewery Joules, to develop a music venue adjoining the pub.

The Midway will also retain its existing concrete frame and floors as the starting point for the redevelopment into 106 one, two and three-bed apartments.

The Ryecroft site will also house around 90 over-55s apartments from McCarthy & Stone, a 110 room Ibis Styles hotel with 10,000 square feet of commercial space beneath it, and a further 35-to-40 homes on the site with Aspire Housing.

At York Place and the Midway, developers Capital & Centric will use the existing skeleton of the existing buildings to form the core of the new ones, which uses less carbon in comparison to new-build structures.

Stephen Sweeney said: “Capital&Centric will be keep the core structure of the buildings in York Place and the Midway car park and incorporate them into the new designs, which makes it a faster, greener, more efficient alternative to total demolition.

“The developer has overseen some stunning projects elsewhere and this will change the landscape in Newcastle, particularly opening up York Place to form a link from Ryecroft to the rest of the town centre, including the market – which is also scheduled for new investment.”

John Moffat, joint managing director at Capital&Centric, said: “There’s such a massive opportunity to do something creative with the three sites and add positively to the fabric of Newcastle’s town centre. We want to keep much of the concrete frames of York Place and Midway, but repurpose them beyond recognition as buzzing neighbourhoods where people want to hang out. But we’ll be speaking with the local community as we pull together and refine detailed designs, revealing more as we go.

“The whole idea is to create a more liveable town centre, providing design-led homes with workspaces, shops, cafes, bars and lush green spaces right on the doorstep. It’s an approach being adopted by forward-thinking councils that want to write a new chapter for their town centres and we couldn’t be happier to be part of Newcastle’s story.”

The Council successfully bid for Future High Street Fund and Town Deal Fund to drive the redevelopment.