Cotton Quay project update

Carey Jones Chapman Tolcher (CJCT) have submitted a collaborative hybrid masterplan to transform one of the iconic piers at Salford Quays into a vibrant new neighbourhood – Cotton Quay, in Greater Manchester.

The site is located on land currently known as Waterfront Quay to the west of Salford Quays Metrolink station. The ambitious mixed-use regeneration scheme is being brought forward by Royalton Group and Frogmore. The project will deliver up to 1,500 residential units, two hotels, a multi-storey car park with an innovative rooftop play park, a harbour baths lido within the basin and significant public realm improvements.

The public realm works will include a quay side promenade and floating ecological gardens. The proposals also include upgrading the Metrolink Station to create a welcoming sense of arrival for both the residents and the public wishing to experience this unique waterfront location.

CJCT successfully achieved an outline planning consent for residential development on the site in 2016. The practice has now fulfilled a more ambitious brief for the Acala Quarter, which will form a vibrant new neighbourhood at the centre of Cotton Quay, delivering 590 new homes across three buildings, which range from six to thirty storeys. Two of the buildings are in outline. The third building forms a detailed application and will deliver 300 homes for the private rental sector (PRS).

CJCT have worked collaboratively with Studio Partington and Studio Egret West on the masterplan. The overarching design concept for Cotton Quay is weaving, which embodies the docks original purpose supplying cotton to the north-west during the industrial revolution. This is expressed through the architecture of the buildings across the pier. 

The concept is carried through to the landscape design. The Quay will be interwoven with green space, including ‘rain gardens’ which will be sustained through channelling run-off rainwater from surrounding buildings to create a moist habitat suited to specific plants and species – a pioneering approach to urban green space that hopes to provide an exemplar for other UK developments.

The scheme will be an exemplar for Greater Manchester’s ambitious plans to be a zero-carbon region. A sustainability strategy will deliver healthy, comfortable, low-energy homes and buildings, designed to make best use of the technology advances in renewable and low-carbon energy distribution.

Ken Parker, Chief Executive of Royalton Group, said: “We are delighted to be bringing forward plans for a flagship development at Cotton Quay. As specialists in large scale residential and mixed-use developments, we are ambitious about transforming this underused brownfield site into a dynamic new neighbourhood in the heart of Salford Quays.”