A “DILAPIDATED” building on the edge of the city centre can be converted into flats – planners have agreed.

The three-storey former office building on Wenlock Street, off Leeds Road, has been vacant for years, and its windows are currently either boarded up or smashed.

Earlier this year a planning application to convert the building into nine apartments was submitted to Bradford Council by Mo Safdar.

The plans have now been approved, with council officers saying the work would bring a prominent, derelict building back into use as “spacious, self-contained apartments". 

The flats would be a mix of one and two bed, and the development would include an area of outdoor amenity space for future residents.

There would be one car parking space and nine cycle parking spaces in the basement area.

Planners pointed out that the building lies within an employment zone, and losing office space to residential use in such areas would normally be blocked.

But they added: “Bringing this property back into a viable use through providing nine self-contained residential apartments close to the city centre and improving the appearance of this dilapidated building and securing its future use and maintenance would be a benefit to the locality and the setting of nearby listed buildings as well as meet local housing need.

“The changes to the principal elevation will improve the appearance of the building with the alterations being fairly minor and largely restricted to windows and openings.

“The proposal is deemed to provide a good standard of residential accommodation and will bring a vacant and derelict former mill building close to the city centre back into a viable use through the provision of nine spacious self-contained apartments.

“Given the dilapidated condition of the building currently the external changes will improve the appearance of the building and also that of the street scene and wider area.”