Salford Forest Park, incorporating the new Manchester Racecourse and the Manchester Champions Golf Course

Peel has proposed a high quality sporting venue and recreational facility on its 690 hectare landholding that will transform the currently underused land. Named Salford Forest Park, it will include riding, walking and cycling trails, a visitor centre, a golf course, a racecourse, an equestrian centre with indoor arena and stabling for up to 80 horses and a 5 star hotel by rebuilding the Duke of Bridgewater’s Worsley New Hall.

This land was the former Bridgewater estate on the west side of the Manchester conurbation at Worsley, the former home of Francis Egerton, the Duke of Bridgewater.

This new Manchester racecourse will have all weather and grass tracks and a grandstand that will accommodate up to 6,000 spectators. Temporary grandstands will also be provided on an occasional basis to raise capacity for flagship events to around 20,000.

This new Manchester Champions Golf Course will be a superb spectator friendly golf course with deluxe facilities – a venue capable of hosting major golf tournaments such as The Ryder Cup.
The Manchester Champions Hotel will be built adjacent to the new golf course and will be a replica of the Duke of Bridgewater’s Worsley New Hall which was demolished following the Second World War.

The Forest Park proposal will also include a cross country course, a woodland visitor centre with educational facilities. A new 80 bed country house hotel will be built on the site of Moss House Farm.

Despite being on the fringe of the Manchester conurbation, there is currently only very limited public access to this huge tract of land at the present time so the scheme includes the construction of over 18 kilometres of cycle trail, 12 kilometres of bridle paths and 32 kilometres of footpaths.

Overall, the scheme provides a unique opportunity to create a world class sporting venue, to reconfigure the estate to provide landscape and habitat improvements and to accommodate a range of recreational facilities of high public benefit without compromising the rural character of the area.