Capital&Centric lodge plans for radical makeover of Newcastle’s Midway car park

Plans to reimagine a 1960s car park into a contemporary urban neighbourhood have been submitted to Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council.

Social impact developers Capital&Centric are set to transform Midway car park into 100 one-to-three bed apartments with landscaping underneath a three-floor atrium. A social hub with a gym, mini-cine and lounge is also planned.

It’s part of the developers’ push to give brutalist concrete structures in prime town centre spots a new lease of life whilst saving embodied carbon within them.

The proposed neighbourhood is the first of three sites being brought forward with the Council to re-boot key town centre spaces, a project which has attracted more than £35 million of investment from the Government’s Future High Street Fund and Town Deal Fund, thanks to authority-led bids.

The submitted plans include:

114 design-led apartments (77 one-bed, 37 two-bed)
Landscaping/community spaces
68 cycle storage spaces
67 car parking spaces

John Moffat, joint managing director at Capital&Centric, said:

“The challenge of building on brownfield land is you need to be bold and creative in your approach. Our radical plans for Midway are exactly that, and will bring forward much needed homes in a prime town centre spot.

“People thought we were mad when we said we wanted to create new homes from a car park but the plans show that it can work and it’s actually made for a more interesting and unique neighbourhood.”

Councillor Simon Tagg, Leader of Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council, said:

“The ageing and outdated Midway will soon be redundant with the opening of Castle car park and this exciting proposal avoids wasteful demolition and allows new housing to spring up on a prominent town centre brownfield site.

“Castle car park will provide a clean, safe car park for the whole town centre. Along with the regeneration of the Ryecroft and York Place with homes, shops and open space, we are beginning to see the visible signs of our multi-million-pound regeneration.”

Capital&Centric has a national reputation for turning unloved buildings and derelict land into homes, workspaces, hotels, shops, bars and restaurants – often embracing eye-catching architecture with energy-efficiency built in. They have delivered award-winning neighbourhoods, including Kampus and Crusader in Manchester city centre.

Locals may have seen Capital&Centric’s founders Tim Heatley and Adam Higgins on their TV screens, in the likes of Channel 4’s Big Interiors Battle – set at their restored Eyewitness Works in Sheffield – and the BBC’s Manctopia, where Tim played a recurring role charting the ups and downs of the property world.

The developer has also just teamed up with Homes England to help bring forward new homes and a lively town centre for the UK’s largest new town, Northstowe, in Cambridgeshire. The partnership will see Capital&Centric design and deliver 2,000 of their ‘neighbourhood’ brand of low carbon suburban homes.