A MULTI-MILLION housing development is to be built in the centre of a North-East city despite opposition from English Heritage.

A former ice rink on the banks of the River Wear, in Durham City, is to be bulldozed and replaced with luxury apartments after members of the city council's development control committee approved plans for the £20m scheme.

The controversial project attracted criticism from English Heritage, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, the City of Durham Trust and some councillors who feared the modern architecture would detract from historic views of the city's cathedral.

However, on Wednesday night, councillors voted to allow the development after hearing the applicant say the building would blend in with the neighbouring Walkergate development and Gala Theatre.

The application, submitted by Durham architects Howarth Litchfield Partnership on behalf of an undisclosed developer, is to replace the building, currently home to the Kascada Bowl ten-pin bowling alley and Meridian Health and Fitness Club. In its place will be built a development of up to six storeys incorporating 93 apartments, a further six homes which mix living and office space, an oval lace-wing building, which would provide recreational space including a viewing gallery above the old mill race, a riverside walkway and open square and a 150-space basement car park.

Initial plans submitted earlier this year were dismissed as "monolithic" by planners but, after a design consultant was brought in, revised plans were accepted, subject to 28 conditions.

However, Dr Douglas Pocock, of the City of Durham Trust, said it was an "inappropriate scheme on a highly sensitive site".

Councillor John Hepplewhite said he was concerned that the loss of the bowling alley, one of the few leisure facilities in the city, would "drive young people into the drinking houses of Durham".

The committee voted by by 13 votes to four to allow the development.