Blackpool Council has given a six-storey office building that is expected to be home to more than 400 civil servants the green light.
The building will be located on the empty site of a former Apollo 2000 store near Blackpool North train station. It will be the next phase of the £350m Talbot Gateway development, which is bringing over 8,000 workers and students into Blackpool town centre.
The building will provide 7,630sqm of office floorspace, with a reception, conference rooms and a cafeteria on the ground floor.
The development has been “sensitively and carefully designed to take account of the site’s unique location”, according to planning documents. The design includes “a layered, detailed, buff brickwork to the building facades”, with the colour of the bricks reflecting their “historical use on a number of prominent buildings” in the town.
Avison Young, which is advising on the planning, said it was “committed to ensuring the proposed new office building is designed to be highly sustainable and energy efficient, to minimise baseline energy demand and CO2 emissions”.
The building will target an “excellent” BREEAM rating on the sustainability certification's scale, which runs from "poor" to "outstanding". Planning documents show energy-saving air-source heat pumps and photovoltaic panels will be used, and the building will have storage for 40 bicycles.
When plans for the building were submitted in June, Mark Smith, cabinet member for levelling up (place) at Blackpool Council, said it would be a “major step forward in our plans to make Blackpool better and boost our local economy”.
“The area around the train station was previously a desolate area in desperate need of regeneration. Over the last ten years we have regenerated it into a desirable location for businesses looking for quality office space on the Fylde coast. Our initial ambition and investment to build the earlier phases of the Talbot Gateway has led us to be in this position where more organisations are approaching us to help them move their jobs into the town centre,” Cllr Smith said.
“In turn, that has a huge potential for the private sector to continue to invest in Blackpool, creating more opportunities for business and creating more year-round, well-paid jobs for local people.”
Previous phases of the Talbot Gateway include adding an office complex that is now occupied by the council and a law firm; demolishing an old retail building and replacing it with a tram interchange; and a new four-star hotel with a Marco Pierre White restaurant.
The third phase of the plan is the construction of a £100m office block that, once completed, will be a civil service hub. The Department for Work and Pensions signed a 25-year lease on the building, which will be known as the Blackpool Hub and Centre for Health and Disability Assessment, in 2021.
The department will move staff from its existing offices in the north of Blackpool, Warbreck House and Ryscar House, to the new hub after its completion next spring.
The building was the site of a small fire in March, with five fire engines called to the scene. However, there were no reported injuries and no "significant damage", according to the Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service.