One councillor slammed scheme as ‘something out of post-war East Berlin’

More than 260 new homes have been approved on the former site of an award-winning building.

The old Adelphi and Centenary Building on Peru Street were demolished last year to make way for new housing. Now a brand new complex of three five to six storey apartment blocks with a total of 263 homes has been greenlit on the land.

The Centenary Building won the Royal Institute of British Architects Stirling Prize in 1996, and was regarded as ‘the UK’s best new building’ at the time. But it was left sitting empty and unused for years before it was bulldozed in October last year.

Now ECF, a partnership between developers and government agencies, have permission to transform the area into two L-shaped blocks around a green courtyard with 74 and 77 one, two, and three-bedroom apartments, which will be available for sale and private rental; and a longer tower block with 112 affordable homes. The affordable homes will mostly be single bedroom units, with four two-bed apartments.

Mr Steve Thomas, a senior development officer for ECF, told a planning meeting on Wednesday, June 12, the development would introduce’ a strong place-making strategy’ to the area, by adding more green spaces, better pedestrian and cycle links, and more affordable homes.

Mr Thomas said: “The proposal has been put together through extensive consultation with the council and the local community, and the many benefits of this scheme include the regeneration of an underused brownfield site, well-designed and energy-efficient new homes, and the creation of several job opportunities for the local area both throughout the construction and beyond.”

The plans include closing off Peru Street to through traffic to turn part of the road into a little green space for residents. There will be eight accessible car parking spaces, though locals will have to primarily rely on the ‘well-connected, sustainable public transport links’ in the area.

The application received only one objection and was widely welcomed by councillors at a planning meeting on Wednesday, June 12.

However councillor Bob Clarke blasted the design of the building, saying: “This has no architectural value whatsoever. It’s a blot on the landscape, it’s just a block. These buildings never age well and I wish more could be done to cover it in some greenery. It looks like something out of post-war East Berlin.”

Others leapt to the building’s defence, arguing it ‘echoed the architectural language of the surrounding area’ and carried nods to the former uses of the site.

The application was passed, meaning another major part of the Salford Crescent regeneration is due to go ahead. The £2.5bn project by ECF – which is made up of urban developers Muse, Homes England, and L&G – aims to transform 240 acres of Salford around the university. A number of projects are already underway or nearing completion, such as Salford Rise, a ‘green walkway in the sky’ over Frederick Road. Plans have also been approved for 227 new homes at the former Farmer Norton car park.

To find all the planning applications, traffic diversions, road layout changes, alcohol licence applications and more in your community, visit the Public Notices Portal.

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Joy is a licensed chemist who left the lab for love! A certified bookworm who also loves to write, she chose to become a writer to pursue her passion and also have more time for her husband and kids. She’s the site’s pioneer writer.

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The Kospi has become the world’s best-performing major equity benchmark this year, surging more than 90% as investors piled into artificial-intelligence winners. Yet the rally has also turned Korea into one of the world’s most volatile stock markets. The benchmark has repeatedly triggered exchange safeguards in recent days, while swings have surged to levels rarely seen among major global indexes.

Now investors are awaiting MSCI’s annual market-classification review on June 23, when the index provider will decide whether Korea finally earns a place on the watchlist for developed-market status, the first step toward an eventual upgrade.

Most of the 15 investors and strategists interviewed by Bloomberg expect MSCI to keep Korea in the emerging-market camp for now, arguing that recent reforms need more time to prove their durability. But few doubt the direction. “It’s more of a matter-of-time issue,” said Young Jae Lee, senior investment manager at Pictet Asset Management. “Korea will become a developed market at least in the next couple of years. That’s my base case.”

The bigger question may be how much the label matters anymore.

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Korea’s market has become synonymous with the global AI trade, with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix accounting for more than half of the Kospi’s weighting. As investors chase exposure to the semiconductor boom, some argue the forces driving Korean stocks are becoming larger than any benchmark classification.
“It doesn’t matter in a sense that Korea is now such a global play,” said Arjun Jayaraman, portfolio manager at Causeway Capital Management. “It’s not about investing in Korea. It’s about investing in AI plays.”By traditional measures, Korea already looks like a developed market. The nation’s equity market has tripled in value over the past year to about $4.4 trillion, briefly overtaking India as the world’s sixth-largest. Its companies occupy critical positions in global semiconductor, battery and manufacturing supply chains.

A country with Korea’s massive footprint shifting classification is “unprecedented,” said Chetan Seth, Asia equity strategist at Nomura Holdings in Singapore. “No other country in recent times with Korea’s weight in existing indices has moved from one market classification to another.”

South Korea currently commands a 23% weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets index. By comparison, Greece and Israel, the two most recent nations to achieve developed-market status, boasted much smaller economies and index weights when they were promoted. The sticking point has long been accessibility for foreign investors. MSCI removed Korea from its developed-market watchlist in 2014, citing restrictions on currency trading and other market-access issues. Last year, the index provider again pointed to shortcomings in foreign-exchange reforms and compliance burdens. Since then, Korea has resumed short selling and is preparing to launch extended won trading hours in July, two reforms long sought by global investors. President Lee Jae Myung has also made capital-market reform a key policy priority.