Gorton Mill House

On the site of a historic cotton mill on Abbey Hey Lane that launched the career of Manchester’s first multi-millionaire, John Rylands, has been given a new lease of life by Southway Housing Trust to provide vital social housing for older people.

This £17 million development provides 106 high quality, low-carbon ‘With Care’ apartments for social rent for people aged 55 and over. Residents can enjoy landscaped gardens, a community lounge & café, laundry, hair and beauty salon, and a restaurant – all open to the public and with access to a flexible range of 24-hour on-site care and support depending on their needs.

Our building and energy modelling team developed the M&E strategy for the development which utilises ground source heat via a network of 120-metre-deep external bore holes. This ground water is then circulated to individual heat pump units providing each dwelling with low energy and low carbon heating and hot domestic water. Southway’s Housing Trust were keen to maximise the carbon reduction for this development, so in addition to the ground source heat pumps large scale photovoltaics panels generating electricity were added together with electric vehicle charging points.

Our team acted as the client’s technical advisor and oversaw the detailed design and build of the new development that was handed over in November 2021. By utilising low carbon technologies and constructing the building to high standards of thermal performance and air tightness has resulted in each dwelling achieving on average a 44% reduction in carbon emissions compared to the building regulation “notional building”

The development was shortlisted by the UK’s leading Housing news publication, Inside Housing, for their best older people’s housing development (urban) award 2021. The award celebrates the very best residential developments across the UK that serve the needs of their communities and strive towards sustainable solutions.