Lancaster City Council has launched a preliminary market engagement exercise for the St Leonards Gate upper and lower car parks in Lancaster as part of plans to create new affordable housing for local people.
The 0.9-hectare site – collectively known as Coopers Fields for the area’s historic association with the brewery trade and barrel making – has long been identified for future housing and is supported by the government’s Brownfield Land Release Fund (BLRF).
The City Council sees the regeneration of the Canal Quarter area as critical to enhancing Lancaster’s role as a sub-regional centre and boosting its housing, commercial, cultural and leisure offer.
Their vision is for “a vibrant, sustainable and active Canal Quarter, integrated with the Lancaster Canal and served by areas of new public open space. A Quarter where contemporary development and hidden heritage can combine to create a diverse residential, commercial, cultural and recreational neighbourhood.”
The initial exercise is designed to test market interest from organisations with the appetite and ability to work in partnership with the city council to deliver affordable and social housing. It will also shape how any future formal development opportunity could potentially be structured to meet the council’s objectives.
However, the council is committed to ensuring that no development will take place until actions set out in its Lancaster City Centre Car Parking Strategy, published in July, are delivered. Assurances are in place that overall car parking capacity in the city centre can be maintained at a sustainable level.
Councillor Peter Jackson, cabinet member with responsibility for Lancaster Regeneration and Local Economy, said: “The regeneration of the Canal Quarter is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape a key part of our city and provide much-needed affordable housing.
“St Leonards Gate is central to this vision, but we are equally clear that housing here can only come forward once we are confident that there is a sustainable and balanced provision of car parking to maintain city centre accessibility.
“This early market engagement is about understanding the best way to secure a delivery partner while protecting our commitments to residents, businesses and visitors”.
If progressed, the St Leonards Gate site would deliver a predominantly affordable housing scheme, helping to meet local need in line with the council’s Homes Strategy and the Canal Quarter Masterplan. The earliest that construction could begin is 2027.
The market engagement will run until 17th October 2025, with responses to be submitted through The Chest procurement portal.
• More information is available on the government’s Find Tender Service site here, and applications can be made by Registered Providers for information here on ProContract
• Lancaster City Centre Car Parking Strategy (PDF)
Developing the Canal Quarter: A Quick Guide
Lancaster City Council has been spearheading plans for the residential-led regeneration of the Canal Quarter for some time. A Masterplan was approved in 2023 and seeks to guide the delivery of housing, additional business space, an enhanced arts and cultural offer and the restoration of some of the heritage assets within the Quarter, including the former Mitchell’s Brewery.
Early phases of housing could, subject to planning permission, include an affordable housing development at the Coopers Field/St Leonard’s Gate part of the Quarter, and similar development at the southerly Nelson Street. The Canal Quarter is partly owned by the council, with council-owned car parks included within the boundary, and partly owned by private sector developers. The council is collaborating with the developers to integrate their proposed schemes.
The council has taken a more proactive role in delivering the site following previous private sector schemes that failed to progress over a decade ago. It has been successful in securing Brownfield Land Release Funding to help unlock the Canal Quarter site, a cross-government initiative between the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) and One Public Estate (OPE) which is delivered in partnership by the Local Government Association and the Cabinet Office).