Grade 2 Listed Heritage Asset
Heritage-led design: Studio Tashkeel transforms a Grade II listed paper mill into 7 modern, high-value residential apartments.
Project info
Category
Apartments & Housing
OVERVIEW A Grade II listed former canal warehouse on the Rochdale Canal, sitting within the Failsworth Pole Conservation Area. Long underutilised, heavily altered, and carrying the kind of planning and heritage risk that makes most developers & designers walk away. We didn't steer away. We built a strategy. We secured both Planning Permission and Listed Building Consent, and delivered a completed scheme of six apartments that proved what the right approach to a constrained heritage asset can produce. Total investment: £655,000. End valuation: £995,000. Return on cost: 52%.
The process
THE BRIEF
The building's listed status was the primary reason the market had ignored it. Grade II designation meant full planning consent was required, heritage officer engagement was unavoidable, and every design decision had to be justified against the building's historic character.
The client needed a practice that could navigate that process without drama - and deliver a scheme that performed commercially, not just architecturally. Speed mattered. Getting planning right first time mattered more.
WHAT WE DELIVERED
Feasibility & Viability Assessment - Early-stage analysis to establish what the building could genuinely yield before any fees were committed to a full application.
Planning Application - Full submission managing the complexities of a Grade II listed building in a conservation area, including heritage justification and design narrative.
Listed Building Consent - Secured alongside planning permission, navigating heritage officer requirements without compromising the scheme's commercial logic.
Design Development - Six unit layouts, including one duplex, designed to maximise yield while respecting the character of the existing fabric.
Building Regulations - Full plans submission through to compliance, coordinating retained historic elements with modern performance requirements.
THE OUTCOME
Planning Permission and Listed Building Consent secured in approximately four months - fast for any residential application, exceptional for a listed building conversion with a complex existing fabric.
The finished scheme preserves what matters: the original front door, original woodwork throughout, individually cleaned roof slates, and windows rebuilt by hand by a joiner to match the historic appearance required by listed building conditions - while simultaneously meeting modern building regulations thermal performance standards.
That level of care is not just heritage compliance. It is the reason the scheme commands the valuation it does.
Indicative Figures: £360,000 acquisition. £295,000 construction. £995,000 end valuation. £340,000 gross profit.
This is the case STA makes to every investor considering a site with heritage constraints: the listed building is not the problem. It is the opportunity - if you have the right team around it.
