A developer is re-submitting plans to build retirement flats for the over-60s on the site of Holcombe Brook Tennis Club.

McCarthy and Stone was granted planning permission by Bury Council in 2011 to build 55 retirement flats at the site in Longsight Road, but now wants to change this to 50 flats.

As part of the planning permission being granted in 2011, construction of the flats could not start until the tennis club had relocated.

Work on the tennis club’s new home in Hazel Hall Lane is now under way, and the club hopes it will be ready by June for the new tennis season.

If the revised application is approved, it would mean a reduction of 45 square metres in the size of the building, the building being set further away from neighbouring properties to the rear, and the number of parking spaces increasing from 24 to 33.

McCarthy and Stone says the alterations will reduce the impact of the development on immediate neighbours.

Steve Secker, the company’s regional managing director for the northern region said, “We’re keen to develop a scheme which positively contributes to the local community, hence the improved designs which will deliver a high-quality, attractive development and increase local housing choice.”

The tennis club is still operating from Longsight Road until its new £1.5 million site — which will include eight tennis courts, six of which will be floodlit, a clubhouse, a mini-tennis area and a practice wall — is completed.

The club, which was formed in 1926, went through 12 years of planning and legal issues before it was given the go-ahead for its new site in October, 2011.

More than 200 people formally objected to the plans, citing traffic problems and concern about the site being built on the green belt, but 68 people formally supported the application. The club has used the cash from the sale of its Longsight Road base to fund the new development.

They have previously produced players who have gone on to represent their country, and previously said it would help bring the standard of their facilities in line with the standard of tennis played there.

Tony Lawson, club secretary, said: “There is a full coaching programme at the old club and this will transfer when we move to the new club.

“The courts are now nearly finished, and now the clubhouse needs to be built. Hopefully we will move in mid- June. It depends on the weather, but we are now trying desperately to get it built.”