Tower at Debenhams site in Southampton 'will inject 1,000 people' into city centre

There will be 598 flats, nine townhouses and a 108-space car park as well as a public plaza.

The scheme was given the green light during a city council Planning and Rights of Way Panel meeting on Tuesday.

Developer Shaun Adams, the CEO and owner of National Regional Property Group, architect Stephen Hodder, and agent Gareth Hooper, CEO of DPP Planning, all attended.

The development will comprise townhouses, and one, two and three-bedroom apartments, set in three separate blocks, surrounding a central plaza.

Block C is the building that will rise 17-storeys above the city centre, offering views of the Central Parks.

READ MORE: Plans for 600 new homes on former Debenhams site submitted

Despite the plans being approved, they faced objections from The Southampton Common and Parks Protection Society (SCAPPS), among many others.

Plans for the former Debenhams site in Southampton (Image: Other)

Graham Linecare, a spokesperson for SCAPPS, which protects city parks, spoke of the negative changes that new tall buildings bring.

He said: “Until the latter part of the 20th Century, buildings on roads facing the central parks were of a height which meant they were not visible above the tree-line when viewed from within each of the parks.

“As more tall buildings have been permitted around the central parks, there has been a cumulative effect on that original landscape character as from more and more places within the parks, tall buildings can be seen rising above the tree skyline.”

The central parks area gradually slopes down from north to south which means that buildings to the south of the parks appear taller and more prominent than those to the north.

The new development will be the sixth tallest in Southampton.

Mr Adams, the developer, said that the apartment block will ‘inject around 1,000 new residents into the city centre’.

He says it will help the ‘city centre to bounce back’ and will ‘create a critical mass of people – making a meaningful change in the city’.

Mr Adams added: “I have a track record for successful delivery of these projects in Southampton.

"I am one of the few local developers that has successfully delivered affordable housing in the centre of Southampton.

“This is a scheme that is very important to us. We worked incredibly hard with the authority right across the board to try and deliver the best possible scheme.

“It’s an exciting scheme in these very challenging times.

“I will deliver hundreds of construction jobs, training and enterprise, which I believe is important for Southampton city centre.”

The panel gave the go-ahead to the development in principle, but delegated the final approval to the council’s head of planning.

It has stipulated several conditions that must be met before the head of planning agrees it, including numbers of cycle bays and electric car charging points.