Decision pending for fire station PBSA after planning glitch
Permission to convert a former emergency services headquarters in Nottingham into more than 600 student flats looks set to be granted next week, after a technical error saw a decision notice for the scheme delayed by a month.
City council planners approved the application in December, but the proposals will head back to committee this month after the authority accidentally made entering into a Section 106 agreement with itself a condition of approval for the scheme.
The scheme, which was lodged by Vita in August last year, would see the city’s former fire and police stations turned into student accommodation, also include an 18-storey tower on the near two-acre site on Shakespeare Street.
To make way for the 364-unit tower, a “dilapidated” five-storey central office building, which currently sits in the middle of the development site would be demolished. A total of 246 studio apartments would be built into the refurbished former police and fire stations, if the scheme is issued with a decision notice next week.
Approval for the scheme is set to bring to an end a decade-long effort to repurpose the site, which has been vacant since the emergency services relocated to purpose-built premises elsewhere in the city during 2016.
Previous plans for the site included a hotel complex, which was approved in August 2020 but never implemented. Later plans for student accommodation on the site, put forward in 2022, were withdrawn when an application to list the 1930’s-era former police and fire buildings was submitted midway through the process. The building was granted listed status in 2023.
According to supporting statements, prepared by architects Fuse Studios and planning consultants Turley, the decision to list the building had created “additional challenges” which meant other schemes such as the previous hotel proposals would no longer be viable.
However, they said the “sensitive” proposed refurbishment of the grade two-listed Police and Fire Station buildings put forward in the current scheme would improve the street-scene along Shakespeare Street, South Sherwood Street, and North Church Street, bordering the site.
Meanwhile, the proposed tower would provide a “high quality, modern” 18-storey building to suit the needs of students living within Nottingham.
Work will finally be able to start once Nottingham City Council’s planning committee agrees the wording of new conditions for the approval of the scheme next week, according to a report set to go before the committee.
“The earlier report and recommendation unfortunately required the prior completion of a planning obligation under section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 before the permission can be issued,” it said.
“In this case the Council is the current landowner and is possible for the Council to enter into an agreement with itself. The appropriate mechanism used in these types of cases is for the Council to enter into an agreement under section 111 of the Local Government Act 1972 requiring the purchaser to enter into a S106 agreement once the land is transferred to them.
“The amended recommendation reflects this mechanism.”
