Building twice rejected as a HMO for more than 25 people could now be converted into flats

Monday, 18 August 2025 16:01

By Chris Gee

A former glass and furniture showroom just 50 metres from a Metrolink stop could be converted into 20 flats.

The two-storey, end terrace commercial property in Church Street West, Radcliffe, is the subject of plans submitted to Bury Council in the past week.

In January 2024, planners threw out proposals for the building for a 35-bed HMO with potential double occupancy.

Earlier this year, a second planning bid for the building saw an application for a 28-bedroom shared house with single occupancy also rejected by the authority.

Now Bury based Wise Living Ltd intend to convert the building into 20 apartments. The building was originally developed as a social club but later uses include the recent furniture supplier.

There the plans to create 10 parking spaces in the rear yard with residents also being given the option to apply for residential parking permits via the council.
A document, published in support of the latest application, states: “It is proposed to convert the main building into a series of apartments.

“The lean to at the south-east will be demolished and a car park, bin store and cycle parking will be created.

“The narrow strip at the north-west will remain as a hard-surfaced yard.”

The report adds that the main building is ‘very untidy, almost derelict in places, with office furniture, materials and rubbish around the ground and first floors, and a room where many paint tins are stored’.

Nineteen of the flats would be one-bed with a single double bedroom home proposed.

Among the reasons the council gave for the most recent refusal at the site were that the scale of the development would ‘seriously detrimental
to the residential amenities of nearby occupiers’.

The proposed building would have two entrances at the front accessed from the public footpath and rear doors would open into the yard area which
is accessed off Glenvale Close.

Planners at Bury Council will decide on the plans once a neighbour consultation period has ended.