More student accommodation is planned to go alongside Chester’s Telford’s Warehouse with the potential to transform a vacant building but also upset traditional residents.
Planning and listed building consent applications have been lodged by Ms Yuehua Ma, of Queen Street, Chester, to convert the former Church of England offices, known as Diocesan House and Raymond House, into a 20-bed student complex.
This follows planning consent being granted on appeal earlier this year for a 350-bed new-build student scheme next to Telford’s despite strong local opposition.
A supporting document says the buildings, once owned by British Waterways, currently have planning permission for offices but have been empty for more than 10 years with no commercial interest despite repeated attempts to let or sell. It was only earlier this year that the property finally sold as freehold.
A lack of car parking spaces, an oversupply of office accommodation and the modern requirement of ‘open plan’ has put off any potential office users, according to the applicants. This scheme would involve 20-bedrooms with kitchen and bathroom facilities plus four off street parking spaces would be created by removing an external yard wall.
The area is covered by an article 4 direction aimed at controlling the spread of houses in multiple occupancy but this was intended to curb the growth of family homes being converted and dominating communities. The developer says its properties are on the boundary of that zone and distinctly separate from the residential area.
The supporting document continues: “The proposal will seek to improve the residential amenity of the Garden Quarter by reversing the loss of accessible family housing in the neighbouring residential streets and the social problems associated with a mix of local private residential housing and student accommodation.”
The applicant concludes: “Being commercially unviable as offices and unsuitable and undesirable as private residential or hotel accommodation due to the large student development adjacent to the site deems that the only viable use of the building is for student accommodation as an extension to the now main use of the immediate site.”
