PLANS have been submitted to alter a student housing development to include a bar, gym and common room.

The proposals to change the development at Sheraton Park, in Durham, have been made following the announcement that a university college will be moving into the development.

Ustinov, Durham University’s postgraduate only college, will be moving into the site in Neville’s Cross next year.

Alumno Developments, which is carrying out the building work, has now applied to alter its initial plans to include more communal space.

The proposed extension includes a common room with bar, seminar room and fitness suite.

The college is seeking to open a bar which would be licensed from 12pm to 2am, with typical opening hours between 7.30pm and midnight during the week and from 2pm to midnight at weekends.

Late night 2am opening would happen on a maximum of 12 times a year.

The extension would be within the courtyard of Sheraton House, and means bicycle storage areas would be moved along Clay Lane to create a “cycle hub”.

A statement by Howarth Litchfield, on behalf of Alumno, says: “The proposed extension provides essential accommodation to allow the new Sheraton Park development to become a fully integrated post graduate college of Durham University.

“The move of Ustinov College to Sheraton Park is also part of the University’s wider estates strategy to reorganise a number of colleges both in the city of Durham and at the Stockton Queens Campus.

“The extension will have no visual impact on the Sheraton Park development from the public and urban design viewpoints, and can be accommodated without impacting on the functionality or quality of the proposed student accommodation.”

Work at the former New College has been going on since January and is scheduled to be complete by next summer, with the first students arriving for the 2017/18 academic year.

The college will initially be split between its current site, which in the future will be occupied by one of the undergraduate colleges being moved from Stockton to Durham, and Sheraton Park but will be solely operating from its new home by 2018/19.

The news the site will be used by a university college rather than as privately-run student accommodation was welcomed by Sheraton Park Residents’ Association.