Leicester: Plan for 200-bed student complex on former hospital site

Regent House was formerly home to the Fielding Johnson Hospital

A proposal to turn a former hospital site in Leicester into a 200-bed student accommodation block has been revealed.

Plans have been submitted to transform Waterloo House and Grade II listed Regent House in the city centre.

It comes after developers previously had proposals for a 268-bed development on the site refused by the council.

The buildings are currently used as office space, but developers said they were "underused".

The 19th Century Regent House building was formerly home to the Fielding Johnson Hospital and was first listed in 1975.

The application for the site, based between Regent Road and Princess Road West, details plans to create a mixture of studio, two-bed and "cluster" apartments.

If the application is given the go-ahead, 160 bed spaces would be installed in Regent House and Waterloo House.

A new building on the nearby car park site would also be turned into accommodation and would feature an additional 35 bed spaces made up of studio and "cluster" apartments..

Council officers rejected previous plans for the project in April last year.

'Revised' plans

Concerns that the proposed development would have been "overbearing" and "harmful" to the local area were raised.

More than 200 people raised objections with the council regarding the plans.

Developers Rumrat Ltd said the new application has been "comprehensively revised".

A planning document states: "The additional storey to Waterloo House has been omitted entirely, [while] the roof extension to Regent House has been reduced to a single storey addition.

"[This will] bring the building's overall height in line with that of the other buildings within the immediate area."