The transformation of shipping containers into houses for rough sleepers, more than 1,200 new homes and two skyscrapers in and around Manchester city centre are among schemes recommended for approval by planners.

Manchester’s planning committee are due to consider a packed agenda at a meeting on July 29, including a raft of regeneration proposals for Ancoats.

But the largest and most significant plans and the ones that have courted the most opposition involve development - and rows over a football club using its floodlights - elsewhere in the city.

READ MORE : Major plans for next stage of Ancoats redevelopment backed for approval - 200 new homes and a 'mobility hub'

Embassy Village

Homelessness charity Embassy wants to create 40 modular homes out of shipping containers to form a ’village’ beneath railway arches near the Bridgewater Canal and the River Irwell.

The innovative scheme will help vulnerable men get back on their feet by giving them a safe place to stay and support with life-skills, with the long-term aim being to help residents find full-time work and move into privately-rented accommodation.

Potential residents will be interviewed and triaged to see who would be willing to take on new opportunities, while a strict zero tolerance drug and alcohol policy will be enforced onsite.

If approved the development, which is also backed by site owners Peel L&P and developers Capital & Centric, will also have a village hall and communal outdoor space for sport, socialising and other activities such as gardening.

Communal facilities on the proposed site include a village hall and sports area

However the planning application has divided public opinion, with 43 responses supporting the project and 18 objections.

Those in favour of the project say it could be a pilot for similar developments across the UK, and have praised Embassy as a ‘well staffed, well managed, and effective service’.

“This is a great use of land under the arches that is not being utilised in any good way and is currently an eyesore,” one said.

Another added: “This is an excellent model that will help to meet a need, create a shorter route out of homelessness, break the cycle of long term homelessness, unburden the council’s housing waiting list and create huge savings to the public purse and the NHS."

But objectors fear that the proposal will make existing crime and antisocial behaviour in the area worse.

One suggested that the development would be better suited to a brownfield site outside the city centre away from the luxury homes in the area.

They said: “[Manchester] council has achieved so much in terms of regeneration of the area, the Embassy Village would be better suited to an area with an edgier aesthetic, such as the Northern Quarter.”

Phoenix Works

The proposed Phoenix Works would sit in an area that has undergone huge change in recent years with the conversion of neighbouring Britannia Mill and Talbot Mill.

The final phase of developer DeTrafford’s Manchester Gardens, the scheme would see the Phoenix House building in Castlefield demolished.

In its place two apartment blocks, 13 and 11 storeys high, will be built on Ellesmere Street to house 237 new homes, commercial units and two private courtyards.

The proposed apartments would arranged in a unique grid layout which will include bay windows.

A CGI of the proposed bay window grid layout

A total of 24 two-bed townhouses are proposed on the ground floor, along with 12 duplexes, 80 one-bed flats and 122 two-bed apartments.

None of the properties will be classed as affordable housing, though DeTrafford will pay £250,000 towards the funding of such homes elsewhere in the city.

The developer completed the Roof Gardens scheme within Manchester Gardens in 2018, with Sky Gardens - 174 homes in a 13-storey tower on Chester Road - currently under construction.

Planning permission for a further 366 homes at Gallery Gardens was granted last year subject to a legal agreement to secure more money for affordable housing and a public park in neighbouring Hulme.

Park Place

The latest £350m skyscraper scheme proposed as part of Manchester’s Great Jackson Street regeneration will be 56 storeys high and will house 1,037 apartments.

Thousands of luxury flats have already been built or are planned in the area, including Deansgate Square, ‘Blade and Circle’, Elizabeth Tower and Victoria Residence.

Park Place will provide a mixture of one, two and three bedroom apartments and, like its neighbours in the Great Jackson Street area, none of them will be classed as affordable.

The proposed towers viewed from Hulme Park

But developer Great Jackson Street Estates is willing to give Manchester council just over £1m to fund affordable homes at other sites in the city.

The towers will also have communal rooftop gardens, gym and lounge areas, as well as an upgraded footpath from the Hulme Bridge to Great Jackson Street.

West Didsbury and Chorlton football club

The only application on the planning committee agenda that does not propose new development, West Didsbury and Chorlton AFC want permission to use their floodlights more often.

Currently the semi-professional side is allowed to turn on the floodlights at Brookburn Road between 3pm and 5pm on Saturdays, and from 7pm and 10pm on no more than 12 weekdays during the football season which runs from August to May.

The club now wants to increase the number of times it can use its floodlights on weekdays to 24 - reduced from an original proposal of 30 - with bosses still expected to submit a report at the end of season on how many times the lights were used.

According to a council report the club has been forced to play home matches away from their ground and turn down hosting local cup finals due to the existing permissions.

But the application has prompted 66 letters of objection - largely from people living in neighbouring properties - which have been supported by local Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors.

Some say the plans are ‘essentially urbanising encroachments into the open countryside’, and that the extra use of floodlights would disturb their residential amenity by creating more noise - including swearing.

However there have been several letters supporting West Didsbury and Chorlton AFC and praising them as ‘good neighbours’ that provide an outlet for local boys and girls to play football and keep active.

To get the latest email updates from the Manchester Evening News, click here.