Plans for apartments tower blocks on long-abandoned land in city

A LONG-ABANDONED site in Leeds is set to be turned into two huge new blocks of flats.

Early plans for a site off Whitehall Road, opposite

offices, for two tower blocks totalling 463 homes, have been presented to Leeds City Council’s city plans panel. The proposal includes two buildings of 17 and 21 storeys, as well as car parking.

But councillors were concerned with the proposed size of some of the studio flats in the buildings. Coun Denise Ragan (Lab) said: “We don’t want people living in rabbit hutches.”

A spokesman for the applicant said affordability had to be taken into account, adding that the scheme would “bring a quality of life and way of living not seen before”.

Coun Caroline Gruen (Lab) asked whether the shared space could be made smaller to make the studio apartments bigger.

But the develop said that would be “inherently very difficult to achieve”.

Coun Neil Walshaw (Lab) said: “There is an awful lot of good in this application. You are really close to a scheme that I could wholeheartedly support.

“We want to see more threebedroom apartments in the city centre and diversify the people that live there.”

Chair of the committee Coun James Mckenna (Lab) said: “We want to see this site develop, but we have been consistent over studio sizes.”

Developers BAM Monk Bridge Ltd are expected to submit a full application in due course.