Apartment block plans unveiled for Preston city centre shop

Plans have been unveiled for a new apartment block on the site of a closed-down shop in Preston city centre.

The six-storey development has been proposed for a plot currently occupied by the now vacant Christian Resource Centre on Fox Street.   The outlet traded for more than four decades before its closure around three years ago, providing religious books and other materials to churches, schools and the general public.

According to an application lodged with Preston City Council, the 19 flats that could be built in its place would include a new retail unit on the ground floor and have been designed to “directly respond to market demand”, while also “maximis[ing] the development potential of the site”. Eighteen of the residential properties would have one bedroom, while the remaining one would be two-bedroomed.

The applicant – Blackburn-based Marana Developments – has submitted an assessment which the firm claims shows its plans would be financially unviable if the development had to include any affordable housing.

Preston planning policy usually demands that 30 percent of any urban housing scheme is made up of properties that fall into the affordable category – meaning they are offered at a discounted rate for either sale or rent.

The company also claims that it will be unable to provide any financial contributions that may be requested from statutory consultees for the likes of school places.  It will now be up to town hall planning officers to decide whether to accept the viability case made by the applicant.

The proposed block would stand alongside the Premier Inn Hotel, which a design statement accompanying the application describes as being “very much out of keeping with the character of the [Winckley Square] conservation area”.

However, the document revealed that the apartment plans have been designed to complement its incongruous neighbour rather than “completely ignore” it.

“Despite [the hotel’s] lack of contribution to the quality of the street. it is difficult to ignore its presence and we feel a new [building] immediately adjoining it should respond to it…through scale and elevational composition,” it states.

The new block would be built from a mixture of red brickwork and metal cladding, designed to be “reminiscent of the old warehouses” which were once located within the area.

To the other side of planned apartments stands a building known as the ‘Devil House’ as a result of claimed spooky happenings in the late 1830s when it was the headquarters of the Mormon Church.