Preston approves city centre car park, 60 homes
In a roundabout way, the city council has kept hopes for the redevelopment of the former Odeon Cinema site alive while also giving developer Progressive Living the right to operate the site permanently as a car park.
Also approved: Barratt Homes’ application for a neighbourhood east of Tabley Lane and Lindum Yates’ storage unit campus.
Read more about each of the projects debated at this month’s Preston City Council planning committee meeting below.
Former Odeon Cinema
Developer: Progressive Living
Planner: 8Planning
The land at 150-154 Church Street has had storied past. It was an Odeon Cinema until 1992. Then the Evoque nightclub until that closed in 2020. Then a takeaway and then a bookmarkers – until May 2022 when it was hit by two devasting fires that led to the demolition of most of the structures. Subsequently, it received temporary permission to become a 116-bay car park until November 2024.
This month, the city council voted to make that permission permanent – while simultaneously having no desire for it to be a car park forever.
Situated within the city council’s 1,600-home Stoneygate masterplan, the city council wants to see the site redeveloped. It’s a hope that landowner Progressive Living shares, with the developer having been in talks with the city council and Homes England for more than a year about the site’s potential.
There has just been one problem, according to the committee officer report. The site’s land value has tanked without having a permanent use. The solution, according to Progressive Living? Giving it permanent permission to operate as a car park, which will help the viability of any future project.
The city council agreed with but with a caveat – the permission only applies to Progressive Living. Should the site be sold, the new owner would need to renegotiate the car park use. This, members agreed, will enable Progressive Living to hopefully build on the site while also, simultaneously, preventing it from being sold and retained as a car park indefinitely.
You can learn more about the application by searching reference 06/2026/0799 on Preston City Council’s planning portal.
Barratt Homes will use elements of the above in its delivery of the neighbourhood in Preston. Credit: via planning documents
Land to the east of Tabley lane
Developer: Barratt Homes
Architect: Geoff Perry Associates
Planner: Lichfields
Preston City Council voted to approve, subject to a Section 106 agreement, the delivery of 60 homes on nearly four acres of agricultural land east of Tabley Lane and north of Tabley Green and William Young Way in Preston.
The homes will have between two and four bedrooms, spanning 13 different house types and including terraces, semi-detached, and detached houses.
Of the 60 approved, 18 are due to be affordable. These break down to nine two-bedroom residences and nine three-bedroom ones.
Access to the site would be from Victory Road and Discovery Drive, which are part of another housing development.
The project team includes Urban Green, LK Group, Waterco, Lees Roxburgh, SCP, A.P. Martin, Air and Acoustics, Calico Enterprise, and Hepworth Acoustics.
You can learn more by searching reference 06/2026/0065 on Preston City Council’s planning portal.
The site sits off School Lane. Credit: Google Earth
The Mill
Developer: Lindum Yates
Architect: Evolve Architectural Design
Planner: PWA Planning
Two agricultural buildings off School Lane in Preston are due to become storage units under the approved plans from Lindum Yates.
The buildings will have 40 storage units between them. There will be space for 20 cars to park. Access will come from School Lane.
The approved plans are reduced from the original proposed to the city council, which sought to demolish the mill on the site and include open storage. However, feedback from the city council strongly implied that open storage would be viewed as non-policy compliant, and thus the scheme was changed to just focus on the two agricultural buildings.
You can learn more about the proposals by searching reference 06/2025/1309 on Preston City Council’s planning portal.
