A former social club in Walkden that has attracted vandals since falling empty will be turned into flats after it was approved by Salford council’s planning panel.
The former Longley Road social club - which has also been home to the area’s Conservative club in the past - has been boarded up in recent weeks on police orders, developers told the planning panel.
A speaker for the developer, Creative Property People, said the derelict building had been damaged by vandals and said their plan to install 16 flats would bring it back to life.
The council’s executive member Derek Antrobus - a Labour member - said: “I hate to say this but I think it will restore the Conservative club to its former glory.”
Councillors voted to approve the plans to partially demolish the building and install 16 luxury flats in the space.
Developers said they had looked into re-opening the building as a pub or another commercial venture, but argued that they had received no interest.
A nearby Wetherspoons had hit the former pub’s trade, he said, but argued that the local amenities in the area - such as nearby schools, parks and public transport links - made the building an ideal location for residential homes.
Some local residents - and local councillor Richard Critchley - had complained about the lack of parking spaces included in the proposal. They argued that the flats would only exacerbate an existing ‘nightmare’ parking problem.
One neighbour wrote in planning papers that [the scheme] ‘makes a mockery’ of the existing permit scheme in the surrounding streets.
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But council officers - who backed the application - said that while the apartments are likely to increase pressure on the roads, it wouldn’t be enough to justify refusing the application.
