A major investor in city centre living has submitted plans for a striking new apartment block - featuring a giant glass "fin" - on one of the Bradford's most important sites.

Asquith Properties, which has already ploughed £70 million into developments across the city, brought in top design consultants Urbed to help draw up proposals for the stunning new project at the Leeds Road gateway to the city centre.

The company had previously withdrawn plans to build the city's first skyscraper apartment block on the derelict Shipley Paints site on the edge of historic Little Germany.

Now the company has submitted a new application to Bradford Council for a £22 million contemporary 11-storey building on the site, containing 130 apartments, as well as penthouses priced at around £250,000.

The dramatic stone-faced design, which incorporates a fin-shaped glass tower, is likely to be hailed as just the kind of sympathetic modern structure that Bradford needs to carry forward its regeneration.

The scheme is the latest in a line of planning applications for apartments developments expected to boost the number of people living in the city centre from around 800 to over 7,500 during the next decade.

Around 500 apartments have been completed by developers so far but hundreds more are underway or have been given the go-ahead by council planners.

Asquith managing director Russell Baker told the T&A they had worked with Urbed, the Manchester-based consultant already drawing up a design brief for the Leeds Road development.

Asquith Properties decided last year to withdraw its application for a 17 storey building after criticism.

Mr Baker said he hoped the planning application would be considered next month and he was optimistic it would be supported.

He said: "There has been a full review by Urbed and it is a stunning scheme."

He said the scheme was pitched below the height of Victorian Behrens Warehouse standing opposite and would not overshadow it.

"It has a glass tower and is a contemporary building with stone wrapped around it. I can't praise the planners and people who have worked with us enough. We have taken advice from the right people."

He said there had already been a high level of interest in the apartments which would probably be priced at £100,000 for one bedroom and between £130,000 and £140,000 for two.

"It has been an expensive building but it is stunning and there has been a lot of consultation and time spent on it," he added.

Mr Baker announced today his company was moving into permanent offices in Little Germany because of their major developments in the city, although they would keep their administration centre in Doncaster.

His company has invested a total of more than £70 million already in developments and the figure is expected to rise to £100 million with another major scheme in the pipeline to be announced soon.

He said: "We believe in what Bradford is doing. We have bought into the dream and we feel the benefits of the whole regeneration of the city. We have similar goals and aspirations.

"Bradford has fantastic architecture and opportunities and the common will of all parties to succeed. We want to be part of that partnership."

Developments undertaken by the company are:

* Broadgate House, Manor Road with 92 apartments £10 million;

* Stonegate with 67 apartments in Stone Street £10 million;

* It is about to start work at Landmark in Grammar School Street car park with 250 apartments £30 million;

* Shipley Paints site which is the subject of the planning application and will have 133 apartments £22 million.

Chief executive of Bradford Centre Regeneration Maud Marshall said: "We have been very closely involved with Asquith and their design team on the scheme for the Shipley Paints site. We are really pleased with the outcome.

"An awful lot of work has gone into one of the most prominent sites and a major gateway to the city which is immensely important.

"It would be Asquith's flagship project in Bradford."