Go-ahead for £98m redevelopment of Preston’s St John’s
The city council has given Praxis Real Estate the green light to deliver a hat-trick of apartment blocks offering up to 500 homes on the site of the city centre shopping complex.
Preston’s planning committee voted unanimously to approve the plans, which feature two blocks where St John’s Shopping Centre currently stands and another at the neighbouring 77-97 Tithebarn Street.
A 16-storey block with 210 flats and another rising to 11 storeys containing 152 apartments would feature a mix of one-, two-, and three-bed homes on the footprint of the ageing retail complex.
Praxis’s scheme would also incorporate another proposed 11-storey building that already has planning consent. Isle of Man-based Wansfell, which Praxis acts for, secured permission for Tithebarn Gateway, a 90-flat development, in 2023.
The scheme has a gross development value of £98m.
As well as one-, two-, and three-bed flats, the project features 75,000 sq ft of commercial space on the ground floors of the two buildings. The development could also include an NHS neighbourhood health facility.
Praxis acquired the shopping centre from Landsec for £4m in 2014. St John’s Shopping Centre was built in the 1960s and comprises a discount retail shopping centre with 26 units.
Lambert Smith Hampton has submitted the plans on Praxis’s behalf, working with NW Architects, which designed the blocks.
The project team includes Stantec, Planit, Donald Insall Associates, GIA, Calico, Collington Winter, and Tetra Tech.
To view the application, use the planning reference number 06/2025/0991 in Preston City Council’s planning portal.
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At the same meeting, councillors voted to approve reserved matters application for 85 flats, including 51 for over 60s, on the site of the former Sumners Pub near Deepdale stadium.
A two-storey sports facility and janazah off Deepdale Mill Street was also given the nod, as well as Lovell Partnerships and Robertson Property’s plans for 229 homes on 19 acres off Bartle Village, which has had outline approval since 2021.
Yet another nail in the coffin of retail business in the city centre,
By Micky
The white cladding or brick work is hiddeous. The windows should be horizontal and not vertical in my view. But the overall design is very poor. Architects should just stick with red brick.
By Mike