Funding breakthrough kick- starts apartments scheme

More than 100 apartments will be built on the edge of Preston's university quarter after a developer agreed to fund affordable housing elsewhere in the city - if it makes enough profit on the project.

- by Paul Faulkner

Preston Council's planners gave the green light to the flats-on a derelict site off Fylde Road, close to the University of Lancashire - in July last year.

The plot has been largely unoccupied since a fire in the 1960s destroyed the 19th-century mill building which used to occupy it.

A remaining three-storey retail and office unit at the front of the site-most recently occupied by a fireplace showroom and car rental facility a decade ago - is also to be flattened as part of the plans.