COUNCIL bosses fear Bradford city centre is being saturated with cheap flats, as another major scheme is unveiled.

Council leader David Green said he was concerned that too many small, low-value apartments would attract a "transient" population rather than building the sustainable community the city centre needed.

He said: "Many of the applications and development proposals we are seeing are for studio apartments and almost bedsitters, which seems to be looking at the market for single people - flats that are easy to sell to investors as part of a property portfolio rather than trying to establish these communities."

He spoke out as plans were submitted for an 11-storey development of 240 flats at a prominent gateway to Bradford city centre.

The site, at the junction of Hamm Strasse and Manor Row, is used as a car park.

But a development company, called Hamm Strasse Limited, hopes to get permission to build two residential blocks there, containing one- and two-bedroom flats.

A host of plans for new city-centre apartments have been going before Bradford Council's planning department over the past few months.

Planners will soon be deciding whether to approve a scheme by Leeds Road-based Beckwith Estates to turn the City Exchange office block, next to the NCP car park on Hall Ings, into 161 studio apartments.

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Last year, plans to turn former Council offices at Olicana House in Little Germany into 138 studio apartments were unveiled, but did not need planning permission because of new permitted development rules brought in by the Government.

The same company, Absolute Living Developments, is also creating 61 one-bedroom flats and 33 studio flats in Alexander House, the former Abbey National Direct call centre in Bolton Road, Bradford, under the same permitted development rules.

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Cllr Green said attracting people to live in the city centre was one of the Council's priorities, but said there needed to be a better variety of homes.

He said the authority needed to press ahead with its regeneration plans to attract better-quality developments.

He said: "We need to continue to regenerate the city, to continue to raise property values to ensure that some of these developments can be bigger, and perhaps slightly more expensive, to attract in couples and ideally families."

And he urged developers to stop looking "for a quick fix and to buy into the sustainable vision we have for the city centre".

Councillor Simon Cooke, Conservative spokesman for planning, expressed similar worries, saying: "I'm not sure whether we need to concentrate all the bedsits into the city centre. It doesn't strike me as a good mix for an effective city centre."

Their concerns were also echoed by Councillor Val Slater, the portfolio holder for housing and planning at the Labour-led authority.

She said she was worried that many of the flats being created were very small, but said the Council often wasn't able to control or influence the plans because of the new permitted development rules.

And Cllr Slater also raised concerns about the height of the proposed new development for Hamm Strasse.

She said: "An 11-storey block does sound a little bit out-of-keeping with the general run of buildings we have in Bradford. We are not a city that is known for tower blocks."

The new development would lie opposite the Grade II listed Yorkshire Penny Bank building, just outside the city's conservation area.

A statement from Shipley architect Halliday Clark, submitted along with the planning application, says the site "forms a prominent gateway to the city" and this development would help to improve it.

It says: "Due to the prominent nature of the site, the development has been designed to create a bold presence along the main road network masking the unsightly arterial route, but takes care to respond sensitively to its neighbours and to the existing character of the area, especially the Penny Bank building opposite the site."

According to the plans, there would be two residential blocks containing a total of 89 one-bedroom flats and 151 two-bedroom flats, with a courtyard and 33-space car park in between.

There would also be some limited commercial floorspace.

Back in 2007, another company, Castlebay Limited, was granted planning permission for a residential development on the site, but the scheme was never built and permission has since lapsed.

This latest plan, while 11 storeys tall at its height, is shorter than the scheme which planners approved back in 2007, according to the architect's statement.

It says: "This development’s scale is in keeping with the new student accommodation next to the site, while still not over shadowing in scale, the listed buildings at the top of the hill."