Yahoo News Demolition of North East university's halls approved ahead of £250m redevelopment
A halls of residence that has housed tens of thousands of North East students will be torn down.
Plans to demolish Newcastle University’s Castle Leazes accommodation blocks have been officially approved by Newcastle City Council.
The 1960s-built site, in Spital Tongues, is set to be replaced with a £250 million development offering around 2,000 new student beds.
University bosses announced a partnership with accommodation prover Unite Students earlier this year to overhaul the Castle Leazes area.
While final designs for the new development are yet to be lodged with the council, local authority bosses have now given the green light for the existing 17 housing blocks to be torn down and the land levelled ready for future building work.
It is hoped the replacement blocks will be ready to open in 2027 and 2028.
A statement jointly issued by Newcastle University and Unite Students said: “Working together, Newcastle University and Unite Students are planning to provide new accommodation to meet the needs of the growing student population. Extensive consultation with local residents has taken place, to ensure the demolition work has minimal impact on the local community.”
The university has said the 1,250-bed Castle Leazes blocks “no longer provide a satisfactory level of student accommodation” and that there is an “immediate and pressing shortage” of student accommodation.
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A report from consultants Pegasus Group that was submitted with the planning application for the demolition work stated there are “significant maintenance backlog liabilities” and that even making a substantial investment in remodelling the existing Castle Leazes “would not achieve fit for purpose accommodation that would be required to meet modern expectations and student needs”.
They added: “The buildings at Castle Leazes are of their time and do not provide facilities or spaces which reflect the needs of the modern student. The buildings are ‘life-spent’, costly to maintain and also perform poorly in terms of sustainability.
“The applicants have considered refurbishing the buildings however this would be at significant cost and given the shape and configuration of the buildings, it would still not meet modern standards, furthermore a retrofit of the buildings would also provide only a very limited operational carbon saving compared to the site’s redevelopment.”
