Potato Wharf



One of the Potato Wharf apartment blocks is seen here looming up over the Vision Centre beyond the railway viaducts in Castlefield.  This unfinished development really does sit on the site of a former potato wharf and one dedicated to a timber yard, seen in the image below of an 1844 map.



You can see the site in the 1950s in the aerial image below.  I have shaded the area occupied by the new housing development in red.



Crosby, the developers of the Potato Wharf site, claim that it offers, "Apartments with Soul in a City with Attitude".  They add that, "The building's facades are deep grey to blend with nearby iron bridges and the supporting timber plinths mirror yesteryear's wooden bridges, while vivid splashes of colour on the exterior nod to the rose and castles colour of the canal's time-honoured barges."





Crosby Homes submitted a planning application on the 31st of October 2006 for their proposed Potato Wharf development.  At that time they were proposing the, "Erection of residential development comprising 3 apartment blocks with 229 apartments, 10 town houses (total no. of units 239), ancillary car parking at ground and basement levels, ancillary refuse store and electricity substation after demolition of existing building".  However, when we took these images, in February of 2011, only one block was complete.  Another remains unfinished and wrapped in a screen painted to look like the planned building.