Frustrated developer says Nottingham risks being ‘left behind’ as £150m scheme hits brick wall

A developer of student accommodation who wants to build a £150m student accommodation scheme in Nottingham has a major site in Nottingham – but says the planning department at the city council seems determined to recommend the scheme be thrown out by the planning committee.

Talking to TheBusinessDesk.com, Jamie Lewis of Code Students says plans for Victoria Works, which would be Nottingham’s tallest buildings in 50 years, appear to have hit a dead end, with the two parties at loggerheads on how the scheme should look – and its accommodation mix.

Victoria Works, a £150m scheme by Code Students which at one point in its planning development was to reach 40 storeys, was downgraded to 19 and 27 floors in 2023 after a public consultation was launched.

Code said the plans for Glasshouse Street next to the Victoria Shopping Centre, if passed, would create 2,000 construction jobs in Nottingham and Victoria Works was set to provide accommodation for around 1,260 students. It would also include indoor and outdoor communal spaces, and around 5,400 sq ft of ground-level commercial space open for community use.

However, Lewis has now said that he has been “surprised at how difficult the Council planners have been to work with”, especially as the site has been identified for a tall building since 2005.

Speaking on behalf of Lewis, Chris May of Freeths added: “We suspect that the planning department’s approach is probably why nothing has been delivered at this site for 20 years even though it has been identified by the Council itself as suitable for a tall building in its 2005 City Centre Masterplan, in its 2009 Urban Design Guide and also within its 2023 Eastside SPD.”

Lewis said that Code has been looking for an “optimum” site in Nottingham for its student accommodation model for “the best part of ten years” and undertook “positive discussions” with the Council about a student accommodation use in this location before purchasing the site in 2020.

May added: “We then started our discussions with the city planners in 2021 following submission of the EIA Screening Request – made in February 2021 – and a planning application was submitted in December 2023.

“Prior to the application being submitted we had two years of dialogue with the Council and around ten months of detailed design input from a leading urban design expert [Richard Coleman of City Designer) followed by an independent design review by the East Midlands Design Review Panel. As of today, we are no closer to obtaining a planning consent at local level.”

Following submission of the application, Lewis and May says that whilst most relevant considerations were addressed to the satisfaction of the Council, they were unable to obtain any detailed design feedback from the city planners.

May said: “To date, we still haven’t received any detailed feedback which suggests that the city planners, or urban design officers, have not undertaken any sort of objective analysis of the design quality of the proposed development or of its potential impacts.

“For reasons we can only conclude to be that they want to resist the scheme, the City Planners have also not accepted the independent conclusions of the East Midlands Design Review Panel and, contrary to the leading guidance on design review, have presented the scheme to another panel. This caused delay and additional costs.”

On top of the delays caused by the absence of engagement on the design, Lewis and May saus that further delay has recently been caused by the raising of concerns in relation to highways which, back in July 2024, they say were confirmed by the city planners to have been addressed and closed off.

May added: “We are still attempting to engage positively with the city planners although we have been advised by the planners that they will be recommending to the committee that the application to be refused.

“We feel strongly that the Planners have a pre-conceived idea of what they want at the site, which is a scheme that is simply not viable. The city planners should be assessing our scheme on its merits rather than attempting to force us to propose only a scheme which accords with their pre-conceived ideas which are not informed by objective analysis and irrespective of whether or not it is deliverable. We see no point in obtaining a permission which is not commercially viable to deliver as that would be a complete waste of everyone’s time. This may well be the reason why nothing has been delivered at the site following its designation as a tall building since 2005.”

Lewis says he has already lost around three years during which his £150m scheme could have been permitted and started, if not, built out.

He added: “It is a very poor message to send out to people who want to invest in the city given the city clearly needs such investment at a time when its financial position is in such dire straits. This risks Nottingham being left behind in attracting development and investment whilst tall buildings continue to be built in other regional cities, such as Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool.”

Lewis said that if the plans for Victoria Works are voted through, Code will start work on the site immediately. If they are refused, he will appeal. He added: “That will cost the council – and ultimately the taxpayer – hundreds of thousands of pounds.”

A spokesperson for Nottingham City Council told us: “As a policy we are unable to comment on planning applications.”