Plans approved for former Sunderland city centre bank to be transformed into shops and apartments

Former Yorkshire Bank, Blandford Street, Sunderland (November, 2022).

Plans to transform a former city bank into shops and apartments have taken a step forward, after winning support from council development bosses.

Sunderland City Council’s planning department has approved two separate applications for 31-32 Blandford Street.

The city centre space was previously occupied by Yorkshire Bank but has been vacant for months, with the original signage removed.

Separate planning applications from the same applicant, both submitted in 2022, aimed to give the bank building a new lease of life.

This included an application to divide the ground floor into two large retail units with separate entrances from Blandford Street.

A separate application also sought permission to convert the building’s upper floors into five residential flats, each with a bathroom, living room and kitchen.

The residential application, classed as a ‘prior notification’ bid, included a total of four dwellings on the first floor and one apartment on the second floor.

During a council consultation exercise on the plans, concerns were raised about the apartments, with two public objections submitted to the local authority.

This included concerns about waste storage and the lack of parking provision, which some said may worsen existing issues around restricted access for commercial deliveries.

After considering the plans and assessing the applications against planning policies, Sunderland City Council’s planning department approved both on October 31, 2023.

A council decision report noted that the apartments did not pose “any significant detrimental risk in respect of transport and highways impacts, land contamination, flooding, ecology, noise and light”.

It was also noted that all apartments would meet the “nationally described space standard” and that the applicant had demonstrated bin storage could be accommodated on the ground floor.