Green light for 600-bed Newcastle PBSA
IQ, the Blackstone-backed student living specialist, has the go-ahead to deliver a two-block scheme topping out at 12 storeys on the Hedley House site.
Newcastle City Council’s planning committee resolved to grant permission for the project at its meeting on Friday. Once legal agreements are completed, the consent will be issued.
The proposal, put together by planning advisor Quod, updates a detailed planning permission granted in August 2018 for two student living blocks of 8-12 storeys, with 535 bedspaces across 162 apartments on the Hedley House/Technopole site.
Keeping the consented height, IQ’s architect Hadfield Cawkwell Davidson has revisited the layout and mix of accommodation and facilities within each block to increase bedspaces to 628.
The professional team also includes transport advisor SAJ, Waterman, Solmek and Apex Acoustics.
Following the initial consent, demolition of office buildings and initial groundworks were undertaken to constitute a start, effectively keeping that consent extant.
The plot concerned sits within the former Kings Manor Business Park, next to the A167 Central Motorway on the edge of the city centre.
As well as that road, the site is bound by the A193 Newbridge Street to the north, a railway line serving Manors station to the south and Argyle Street to the west.
A 272-bed iQ student living scheme, Collingwood House, was built in place of the demolished Clough House at the business park in 2018. Manorview, Hedley and Eastgate Houses have since been levelled, with only the Labour Building remaining of the legacy stock.
Since the initial application, the adjacent Manorview and Eastgate House sites have been acquired by the applicant, allowing iQ to progress the whole former Kings Manor business park as a student living campus.
The 2018 consent remains as a fallback. As planning advisor Quod says in its planning statement, the updated submission includes some working amendments to the previously submitted scheme, some related to technical details – for example air quality has improved in the six intervening years.
Quod said: “The focus has been on developing a scheme which is deliverable (reflecting ongoing viability pressures) whilst addressing relevant planning policy”.
According to HCD’s design & access statement, most of the accommodation will be in cluster flats of between five and 10 bedspaces, with a smaller number of studio apartments. In part, the plot can accommodate more bedspaces due to room being freed up by co-locating some facilities at Manorview.
Of the suggested Section 106 contributions, the most eyecatching is an off-site open space contribution of £278,000.
Blackstone bought iQ Student Accommodation from Goldman Sachs and the Wellcome Trust in February 2020 for £4.66bn, at which point it owned and managed 28,000 student beds across the UK, mostly around Russell Group university cities.
North East developer Adderstone had worked with IQ to deliver the Collingwood accommodation and controlled thew Kings Manor site until exiting in 2021. Ryder produced the designs for the first iteration of iQ Hedley, while tp bennett has produced designs for Manorview.
Newcastle’s wider PBSA market remains buoyant. Leumi has this year backed Curation Capital with £33m to acquire and refurbish Mansion Tyne, while high-end operator Vita secured a 250-apartment consent in April.
The iQ Hedley scheme’s reference on Newcastle’s planning portal is 2022/1763/01/DET.
