Meeting growing housing demand through the transformation of Pyramid Park and Q-Park

Everyone deserves a decent place to place to live and delivering more high-quality and affordable homes is a key priority for Bury Council.

Through the ambitious Bury Town Centre Masterplan, the council is transforming underused brownfield land into new neighbourhoods that will bring more people into the heart of the town, support local businesses and drive long-term regeneration.

A major milestone in that vision has now been reached, with work officially underway to prepare the Pyramid Park and Q-Park sites for the development of hundreds of new homes in Bury town centre.

Councillor Charlotte Morris, Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Growth, recently joined representatives from Conlon Construction and Cheetham Hill Construction at Pyramid Park for a celebratory 'spade in the ground' event, marking the start of the remediation and enabling works. Also in attendance were other councillors, the council’s Chief Executive, Lynne Ridsdale, and representatives from other public sector partners, including the GMCA and TfGM.

Councillor Morris remarked, "Today marks an important landmark for the council in meeting growing housing demand and creating thriving communities.

“By bringing forward Pyramid Park and Q-Park, two strategically important brownfield sites that sit at the heart of our ambitions for Bury town centre we are recognising their enormous potential and now turning that potential into reality. This is the start of things to come as part of regeneration of Bury town centre.”

The disused 7.4-acre brownfield site at Pyramid Park, located off Market Street in Bury, was formerly home to Knowsley Street railway station and sidings until the line closed in 1970 and the area was reclaimed as informal open space.

For years, Pyramid Park had lain derelict and overgrown, attracting antisocial behaviour, made worse due to poor visibility and the lack of ground level access to the site from the town centre.

Pyramid Park has long been identified as a key regeneration site and is highlighted in the Bury Town Centre Masterplan as suited for high-quality residential development.

In line with a brownfield first approach to housing delivery, in 2023, Bury Council was successful in attracting £1.73 million from the government’s Brownfield Land Release Fund (BLRF2) to enable a package of land remediation and de-risking works to be delivered at Pyramid Park, thereby improving viability and unlocking it for future residential development.

Bury Council has appointed Conlon Construction to deliver the remediation and site enabling works. Conlon Construction will be using several Bury based businesses through the scheme works, including The LK Group and Cheetham Hill Construction, as part of their engagement and support of the local supply chain.

Darren Lee, commercial director at Conlon Construction said: “We are proud to be working with Bury Council on such a pivotal regeneration project at Pyramid Park. This site has huge potential to positively transform the town centre, and we’re looking forward to delivering the enabling works that will unlock it for high-quality housing. It’s especially rewarding to be involving local businesses throughout and supporting the borough’s growth and community aspirations.”

Claire Chamberlain, director at Cheetham Hill Construction said: “As a company based in Bury for almost 60 years, Cheetham Hill Construction is proud to be working alongside Bury Council and Conlon Construction on the delivery of the enabling works at Pyramid Park. This local scheme plays a vital role in supporting the borough’s regeneration ambitions and reflects our commitment to helping communities thrive.”

With the remediation works now progressing at pace, the council have partnered with Radcliffe based housebuilder, Watson Construction, who will deliver the future residential development at Pyramid Park but also at the vacant Q-Park site nearby.

Although Q-Park was built in the late-2000s as part of the original Townside development scheme, the airspace above the car park has remained vacant ever since, due to the prolonged economic and viability challenges in the years following the recession.

With this existing Q-Park structure already designed to accommodate the construction and weighting of a future residential building, the proposals to develop above Q-Park will enable new, specialist extra-care accommodation to be delivered in a highly sustainable location, and close to NHS services provided at Townside Primary Care Centre.

Meanwhile, the Q-Park car park will continue to operate as normal through the construction works and into the future.

Rob Watson, Director at Watson Construction said, "We are delighted to have been chosen to work with the council on the next phase of Bury town centre’s regeneration. This flagship development will help unlock further investment in the town centre."

Rob Watson added, "The council set out a clear brief on housing mix and tenure, shaped by local housing need and focused on creating a new community that improves people’s lives. From a developer’s perspective, the council’s vision — and the way it has been communicated throughout the process — has been refreshing. We look forward to working with our partners to deliver a scheme that will further support the growth and regeneration of Bury town centre."

Bury Council has previously worked with Watson Homes, a regional developer with a strong track record of delivering affordable housing across Greater Manchester, most recently at the Green Street site in Radcliffe town centre.

The new residential scheme will deliver a mix of apartments and townhouses with a provision of extra-care, dementia, later-living, and care leaver accommodation, thereby fostering a new, mixed, sustainable intergenerational town centre community across both sites.

Watson Homes will now prepare for the submission of a planning application for the scheme over the coming months.

Meanwhile, public transport connectivity to the neighbouring interchange and wider town centre is also being enhanced through the provision of a new pedestrian footbridge spanning between Union Square, which fronts onto Q-Park, and the Pyramid Park site.

This new pedestrian link will provide access to upgraded Metrolink platforms and forms an essential part of the multi-million-pound redevelopment of Bury Interchange by Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM), which is due to commence later this year.

The remediation works at Pyramid Park are set to be completed in autumn 2026 which will ready the site for the start of construction of the residential development in 2027, subject to planning approval.

Note to editors: The One Public Estate programme is a partnership between the Office of Government Property (OGP) in the Cabinet Office (CO), the Local Government Association (LGA) and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). Our joint aims are to bring public sector bodies together in order to create better places by using public assets more efficiently, creating service and financial benefits and releasing land for development to create new homes and jobs in local areas.

For further information please email communications@bury.gov.uk