A couple who own a slaughterhouse which served their Flixton butcher’s shop now want to turn it into a home.

Jim and Andrea McGuirk have applied for planning permission to convert the building on Flixton Road, backing onto Flixton Girls School, into a residence.

The slaughterhouse – behind a row of terraced houses – originally served the butcher’s a few hundred yards away before it closed and became a sandwich bar and deli with indoor and outdoor seating.

The building has been used for storage for the McGuirks’ loft conversion business for more than 20 years.

A planning statement on Trafford’s online planning portal says: “The building is in a poor condition and the proposed works would make efficient use of an under-utilised building and enhance the appearance of the site and wider locale.”

Planning documents propose that the 500sq ft footprint of the building be retained along with the lower walls with the inclusion of half-dormer windows added to the front roof of what would be a two-storey home.

This would result in a two to three-bedroom unit with a total internal area of about 800sq ft.

The planning statement goes on: “The slaughterhouse is in a poor condition, the external walls are bulging which is reducing the stability of the building.

"The scheme proposes to reduce the height of the property thus removing the bulging wall sections, replace the roof and installing dormers to each roof slope.

“The project would reuse the existing materials where appropriate and introduce new materials that are suitable to the architectural form of the host building.

"One of the existing circular windows would be repositioned to the side south-facing elevation and overall, the alterations would ensure that the development respected the character of the existing property.”