AN extra cash handout has been approved to ensure Bury's former courthouse is redeveloped.

The Bury Times reported last October how a loan of £3.95m had been agreed by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority for the Tenterden Street complex.

Councillors sitting on the GMCA's local enterprise partnership panel have now been told that further due diligence has been carried out concerning the regeneration proposals.

And now an additional £31,000 has been sought by Jubilee Way Estates, a venture established by Graham Cowand and Hyman Weiss, registered to Heaton House, in Bury Old Road, Crumpsall, and approved by the panel.

More than £500,000 could be secured for local improvements, under planning gain incentives, if the old courthouse is eventually redeveloped.

Jubilee Way wants to create 39 apartments and 10 houses, by revamping the former courts, which ceased hearing cases in 2017. The courthouse was originally acquired by a linked outfit, Welcome Estates, from Homes England in 2018. The same outfit converted the old Ribblesdale Medical Centre for housing.