FINAL plans for a renowned Middlesbrough boozer to be demolished and student accommodation built in its place have been approved.

Middlesbrough-born property developer Peter Hall is behind the new project, which will create 59 student flats at a five-storey block at the site of The Junction pub.

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The new building will have a food court with restaurants and a shop on the ground floor, while the first and second floor will both have 18 student flats alongside two areas for socialising.

On the third floor, there will be 16 flats with two social spaces and on the fourth floor, there will be seven flats with one social space.

The Northern Echo:

A graphic drawing of how the building would look

The block was originally meant to have seven storeys, however plans have been scaled back since the original planning application was submitted in May 2019.

The Junction, on the edge of the town centre, has a long chequered past and just last year landlady, Anne Thurlwell, told Middlesbrough Council’s Licensing Committee that she wanted the opportunity to turn the pub around.

Prior to the hearing, Cllr Chris Cooke aired his concerns about the pub’s past in a letter where he wrote that drug use was ‘condoned by negligence’, fireworks were sold from the pub and a police raid found that one of the floors had been converted to a cannabis farm.

It’s not just The Junction that is set to be transformed, the wider area is currently undergoing change as there are also plans for new houses.

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Thirteen Group, which is investing £20m in the first phase of the development, is building homes that will all be rented at an affordable rate and include two to four-bedroom houses, with a combination of apartments, houses, and bungalows.

The properties are being built on land that was cleared a number of years ago between Union Street and Diamond Road, behind Borough Road.

Construction work has already begun on the project and the first homes should be available to rent in summer 2022.

There will also be a second phase, with a further 77 homes planned, though this work is not expected to start until 2022.

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