Green light for Newcastle apartment plans

Plans to demolish a commercial building in the centre of Newcastle and replace it with a six-storey student accommodation block have been approved.Crosslane Group’s proposal is to demolish the car salesroom and workshop at Formula One on Albert Street.In its place the company is set to build a six-storey student accommodation block comprising 130 rooms. Each floor will be arranged in a cluster pattern with four-, five- or six-bed pods served by one communal living room.A gym will also be built on the ground floor as well as a study hub on the first.An original application for 159 rooms was due to go before Newcastle City Council on 20 November 2015 but was earmarked for refusal. A report to the council ahead of the meeting said the main concern lied with the overall scale and massing of the building together with the “layout and associated issues with residential amenity”.However, after the application was withdrawn, a revised proposal was submitted by Crosslane which it said “has been prepared to detail the changes that have been made and how these accord with the changes requested and issues raised in respect of the earlier scheme”.