A bid to create a temporary “open storage” facility on a Preston site earmarked for the development of almost 500 apartments has failed.
Preston City Council has rejected the proposal for part of the former Dryden Mill plot on the outskirts of the city centre.
Stoneygate Living Limited was granted permission for the residential scheme – on land bounded by Manchester Road, Grimshaw Street and Queen Street – by the authority’s planning committee back in March 2023.
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However, last month, the firm said the high-rise project – made up of six tower blocks up to 16 storeys high, spread across two individual buildings – was “unlikely” to get off the ground within the next three years.
It came as an application was lodged to turn the section of the site not already in use as a car park into storage space in the interim.
That followed the collapse, last year, of a deal for development specialists Begaravia to deliver the 469-apartment scheme, which had been hailed as the “catalyst” for the regeneration of the Stoneygate area.
But city council planners have kicked out the temporary storage plan for a range of reasons – including that it would “undermine” the blueprint drawn up to revamp that area and create an “urban village” by promoting the “growth of city living”.
They also concluded that “insufficient information” had been provided about how the 24-hour facility would operate in order to enable the authority to judge whether there would be an “unacceptable level of impact” on residents by “potentially storing anything in an open environment”.
While the storage proposal did not attract any public objections and does comply with a local planning policy promoting the re-use of previously-developed ‘brownfield’ sites, it conflicts with the location being earmarked for housing.
It was also judged to have some “limited visual harm” on the nearby Grade II-listed Grimshaw Street School and the Seventh Day Adventist Church, which – although described as “negligible” – would not be outweighed by any public benefits of the storage facility.
The city council’s decision follows its rejection of a separate application to allow Stoneygate Living to escape a demand previously made by the authority for it to make a financial contribution towards the development of affordable housing elsewhere in Preston – if the Dryden Mill scheme ultimately makes more profit than is currently being forecast.
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