Hundreds of apartments proposed for brownfield city site

Pre-application plans for 618 apartments along with ground floor commercial space at the former Arla Foods site, in Leeds, were presented to councillors earlier today – 24 February.

The latest proposals are for an L-shaped, two-hectare piece of vacant brownfield land south of Kirkstall Road, where outline consent was given in June 2021 to redevelop the site for residential and commercial use.

Since that previous consent, the land has been acquired by developer Glenbrook Property.

Outlining its own, early stage proposals for the site to members of Leeds City Council’s City Plans Panel, the business explained it wants to demolish existing buildings and structures and develop the apartments across five new blocks ranging from seven to 13 storeys high.

50% of the apartments would be one-bed homes, 40% two-bed and 10% three-bed.

Glenbrook says the ground floor commercial space would total about 3,800 sq ft and a newly created riverside park would cover nearly 20% of the land. More than 100 trees would be planted as part of the landscaping.

There would also be 230 car parking spaces, 20% of which would initially be equipped with electric vehicle charging points.

Councillors on the panel were broadly supportive of the scheme’s layout, scale, design and the materials to be used for the buildings.

But they questioned the proposed housing mix, warning that allocating 10% of the apartments to three-bed homes would not be enough to make this a family-friendly development.

Cllr Dan Cohen said: “I can’t support applications where the housing mix is too far away from policy compliance.

“We have a policy of 30% for three-bedroom homes. We’re never going to get anywhere near our target if we keep approving applications below that percentage.”