Flats plan for former pub site is approved
PLANS to convert the building that housed a Wetherspoons pub into student flats have been given the goahead.
The chain closed the Last Plantagenet in the five-storey former Maples furniture store, in Granby Street, Leicester, two years ago and the building has stood empty since.
The planning committee at Leicester City Council has now voted to approve a scheme to turn its upper floors into 56 student flats.
Concerns were raised about the size of the flats, however. Some of the studio flats are to be as small as 19 square metres. The average size of a parking space in the UK is 12 square metres.
Castle ward councillor Patrick Kitterick, who represents the city centre, described the development as “dreadful” and “cramped”.
He said: “What’s gone wrong? They are trying to squeeze too much in this. The space standards are not good enough.”
He warned lack of space could have an impact on the mental health of the students who will live in them and pointed out six of the flats, at the back of the proposed development, would afford a view only of another building.
The government has a national minimum space standard for new homes of 37sq. metres, but the regulation does not apply to student accommodation.
In any case, the council has not yet adopted the standard in its planning policy so committee members were told they could not reject the application on size concerns.
Coun Kitterick said fewer but larger flats would be preferable and pointed out there were once plans to turn the building into a 38-bedroom hotel.
A spokesman for the developer, Friends Taverns Ltd, told the committee the flats would not be the students’ permanent homes and the scheme had been designed with their wellbeing as a priority.
It is to include a bar on the ground floor as well as a gym. He said the scheme would restore a prominent building in the city centre and, as a nod to its past, the Maples store sign would be put back in place.
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PASSED DESPITE CONCERN ABOUT SIZE OF SOME STUDENT ROOMS