Developer to turn police HQ into student block

COUNCILLORS in Preston have given the go-ahead to a plan to convert the city’s old police station into a student accommodation block with 87 flats.

Liverpool-based BPS Developments plans to transform the eight-storey 1970s block by adding two floors and two smaller buildings.

It wants to strip off the concrete cladding and add a glass-walled floor at the top of the building. Once completed the flats will be rented to students, rather than sold.

The building has been empty since the police headquarters was moved to Lancaster Road North.

There have been no objections to the £16m scheme, but one correspondent to the council’s planning office pointed out that prisoner access to the neighbouring magistrates’ court needs to be maintained from the police station’s basement.

Manchester-based Turley Associates has acted as the agent on the scheme.