Year: 2013

A complex of more than 220 student flats in the city centre has been granted planning permission, with one councillor saying Norwich needs more.

London-based Alumno Developments had lodged plans with Norwich City Council for the redevelopment of a site close to the city’s bus station, for a scheme it has branded as All Saints’ Norwich.

Members of Norwich City Council’s planning committee approved the plans for a 228-bedroom student accommodation block on the east side of the bus station site, between the YMCA and Queens Road …

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Developers are proposing a major expansion of student housing in Winchester.

Geoffrey Osbourne Ltd is hoping to build a 250-bedroom block on the Wykeham Industrial Estate on Moorside Road, Winnall.
The developers say the scheme will help ease the controversial ‘studentification’ of estates such as Stanmore and Winnall which has seen scores of family homes converted into flats.

Amanda Sutton, director of planning consultants Neame Sutton, said: “[Osbourne] found a real need to build student accommodation. We knew about the council’s initiative to free up affordable housing and this is the answer. I I think if we were in a residential area then we may get some backlash but we are out of the way up on the edge of the city.” …

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Warwick postgraduate students could be staying at former hotel dormitories  as Kenilworth’s Peacock Hotel will be transformed into university student accommodation.

The Peacock Hotel property, situated at 149 Warwick Road in Kenilworth, has made an application to change its use from a hotel to a ‘house of multiple occupancy’ for postgraduate students.

The hotel will be transformed into a 37-bed accommodation hall with 23 car parking spaces.The proposed changes were made due to a “significant decline in earnings” at the hotel over the past five years …

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Norbiton residents were left furious after plans to build a five and six storey student accommodation block on the Cambridge Road estate were voted through.

Members of Kingston Council’s development control committee approved an application for a 272-room block of flats with roof terrace and retail unit on the former Duke of York pub and the current site of Enterprise Rent-A-Car.

Applicants AK II Property Investment’s proposal succeeded two months after the committee rejected a different plan for a six and seven storey, 300-room block on the same site …

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A £6.2m student accommodation project is now underway in the heart of Bristol city centre.

The Anchor Road build is lead by Midas Group, one of the UK’s largest independent construction companies.

The project, to be known as Harbour Court, will consist of a 4,250sqm development for Prime Student Living, part of the Crosslane Group, which currently operates six student accommodation buildings in five cities across the UK …

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Councillors have approved plans to convert an office building into student accommodation, despite Epsom Council launching a bid to protect its business district from a controversial change to planning law.

The council said last week that it is aiming to introduce protection for Adelphi Court, Crossways House and Bradford House, in East Street, Epsom after a change in planning law, introduced by the Government in May, which frees developers from having to obtain planning permission from the council to change office space into residential use.

But last Thursday, September 5, the council’s planning committee approved the conversion of three floors of Crossways, which has been vacant since 2010, into 45 student bedrooms for Epsom’s University of the Creative Arts (UCA), with office use being retained only on the ground floor …

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Hundreds of students have been forced off campus after their university accepted too many undergraduates, without being able to provide them with on-site accommodation.

York University first-years were left alienated from fellow freshers and struggling to stump up the cash for private housing after being told there was no room in the university’s student housing on campus. One first-year student told the university paper Nouse: “I don’t know where I’m living. I was told I’d know 6 September latest and I still haven’t been offered any accommodation. It’s just constant delays after delays.” …

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A new ‘urban village’ development has been approved despite vital documents not being made available to decision makers until minutes before the decision was due.

An “administrative error’ was blamed for the delay in providing members of the council’s planning committee with detailed architectural plans for the site in Blackhorse Lane, Walthamstow.

Three committee members raised concerns about the break in protocol …

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London-based Alumno Developments has lodged plans with Norwich City Council for the redevelopment of a site close to the city’s bus station, for a scheme it has branded as All Saints Norwich.

If approved, it would see a 228-bedroom student accommodation block of up to nine storeys built on the east side of the bus station site, between the YMCA and Queens Road.

The plans also seek permission to demolish numbers 52 and 54 All Saints Green, the refurbishment of Number 50 – a Grade II listed building – and the creation of a “pocket park” …

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Campus Living Villages has opened a UK regional office at Quay West, in Salford’s MediaCityUK.

The company has taken a nine year lease on a 2,600 sq ft office and will be located on the 8th floor of the West Wing of the building overlooking the waterfront and next to the Imperial War Museum North.

Campus Living Villages own and manage student accommodation and communities.  With 35,000 customers worldwide, the company has been operating in the UK since 2008 …

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