Insider Media Limited

Developer Kier and Hall has submitted a planning application to build 66 new student flats at 95 Talbot Street in Nottingham, Insider has learnt. The 24,000 sq ft, multimillion-pound mixed-use development will also include retail units on the site of the former Gee’s Japanese Restaurant, which has been derelict for 14 years.

It is the second planning application for student accommodation to be submitted in as many months.

The application has been submitted by Nottingham-based architects Clark, Birch & Perkins (CBP) – the company which designed the huge Marco Island residential development in Nottingham city centre.

The site has had a stop-start history in front of Nottingham City Council's planning committee. An initial application was granted full planning approval in September 2004 for a five-year period which then lapsed in September 2009.

Approval was given to demolish the existing building and construct a new mixed-use scheme of 24 one- and two-bedroom apartments with A1/A2/A3 commercial units to the ground and lower ground floors.

A spokesperson for CBP said: "Our application is very much based on the previously approved scheme but substituting the apartments for residential student units.

"The massing and height of the building follows the original design concept to ensure that the principles behind the original approval are maintained and adhered to."

95 Talbot Street was built in 1902 as a Livery Stables designed by Hedley J Price Architect and Surveyor, based in Nottingham.

The building has now stood unoccupied for 14 years and has become derelict.

CBP said the building has been subjected to numerous break-ins and is reportedly attracting squatters and drug users as a gateway into the city.

News of the development comes just weeks after The Mansion Group submitted an application to Nottingham City Council to renovate Bowman House on Talbot Street into student accommodation.

Mansion bought the 30,303 sq ft former office building from Mapeley, the Guernsey-based real estate investor and asset management vehicle.

The Nottingham office of Jones Lang LaSalle was involved in putting the deal together, and Matthew Robertson, surveyor at the firm, said such developments would take a lump of Grade C office accommodation out of the Nottingham market.

Robertson told Insider: "Bowman House is one of a number of city centre office buildings currently being promoted for conversion to student accommodation. For Nottingham, changing the use of these buildings to student accommodation will help address the over supply of poor quality Grade C office accommodation."