Council to rule on 20-storey flats scheme

Entrance to old cinema will be filled in

PLANS TO build a 20-storey apartment block east of Leeds city centre are set to go before councillors at a meeting this month.

A proposal for a “stepped building” at land off Foundry Street and Saxton Lane includes plans for 204 “build to rent” apartments, more than half of which would be one-bedroom, 24 with three bedrooms and one with four bedrooms.

The application, submitted by Modernistic Ventures Ltd, would also include 206 cycle spaces, car parking and “amenity space” on the roof and edges of the site.

Permission had previously been approved for a nine-storey student block on the site had been approved in 2004, but work was never started.

Leeds Council’s City Plans Panel is set to meet to discuss the plans on March 11.

THE LONG journey to turn the former Odeon in Bradford city centre into a live music venue has taken another step forward.

It is hoped the former cinema, which has been empty for two decades, will be reborn as Bradford Live – a major new live music venue.

Now the latest planning application for the building, where The Beatles and others played in the 1960s, was approved by Bradford Council.

The applicants asked for slight amendments to the previously approved scheme, including the infilling of the central entrance to the building, which was created in the 1960s.

The plans also called for a new exit door to the east elevation of the building.

It follows the approval of another planning application last month – to build a National Power Grid sub station in the service yard to the rear of the building.

The Bradford Live project is one of the biggest regeneration schemes in the city’s recent history. The cinema, empty since 2000, is expected to be brought back to live as a music venue with a capacity of around 4,000, run by the NEC Group.

The Theatres Trust, which removed the building from its

Theatres at Risk register last year, supported the latest amendments to the plans.

The trust said that the changes were to the more modern aspects of the building, and the work would “remain consistent with the building’s 1930s design and character.”

Bradford Council’s Conservation Officer Jon Ackroyd also supported the changes, saying: “The principle of infilling the 1960s entrance, which was rather crudely inserted into the original elevation, is welcomed.”

The applications, submitted in September, also included new images of what the inside of the building could look like.

The building’s iconic turrets will both be brought back to life creating new bar areas.

The water damaged roof will be replaced in the Tea Room Turret and the Ballroom Turret and features such as the large windows restored.

Other bar areas include a large bar on the ground floor crescent and an art deco style “cabaret bar”.