Hopwood Hall, Hopwood Hall College, Middleton Campus Rochdale Road, Middleton, MANCHESTER, M24 6XH

proposed change of use of buildings and grounds to sui generis, to include: events; hospitality; tours; education; café; and shop, with ancillary facilities without complying with conditions attached to planning permission Ref 22/00907/FUL

Authority: Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council
Appeal type: minor · Planning Appeal
Procedure: Written Representations
Development: leisure-sport · Other minor developments
Inspector: Ashworth S

Main issues, as the Inspector framed them

The effect of varying condition 2 and removing condition 3 on the special interest and significance of Hopwood Hall as a heritage asset; on parking and highway safety and on protected species

What decided it

The insufficient detail about how the proposed uses would be distributed across the first floor and the resulting inability to assess impacts on the heritage significance of the listed building and on parking and highway safety.

Plan policies cited: Policy P2, Policy T2, Policy DM1, Policy JP-P2

Read the decision letter on the Inspectorate’s site

The main issues and the deciding factor are read from the published letter by Town Planner Pro; the letter itself is the record. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Research, not advice.

What an account adds

Draw a red line around your site and the appraisal follows.

Heritage. Listed buildings by grade and distance, conservation areas, scheduled monuments, registered parks and gardens, heritage at risk.
Landscape and environment. Green belt, national parks and national landscapes, SSSIs, ancient woodland, SPA, SAC and Ramsar sites, nutrient catchments.
Flooding. Flood zones 2 and 3, surface water, and both again with climate change.
Transport. The 800 metre station catchment and service frequency, bus stops with their weekday frequency, the cycle network, and the Framework’s transport tests measured for the site.

Then the development plan position, the housing land supply as an Inspector last accepted it, and every appeal decided around the site with its letter.

Every English appeal since 2016, with the letter behind it wherever the Inspectorate published one. Searched by meaning as well as by words, with the key case law counted live across the letters.

Casework that chases the deadlines. Applications, appeals and conditions with their statutory dates.

The judgement stays yours. The tool gathers the material and dates it.