Drive-thru Starbucks and apartment building plan approved

A Starbucks will be built on a brownfield site off Thornton Road, while the 65-apartment development, which will include a rooftop garden, will be built on a former mill site just yards away on Listerhills Road.

Plans for the development, which were submitted by Mi7 Projects Ltd, have been approved by Bradford Council, with planners saying the work will be “a beneficial reuse of a brownfield site".

The apartment building will include two ground-floor shops as well as 65 one-bed flats and its rooftop green space.

An artist's impression of the planned rooftop garden (Image: 1618 Architects)

The site was once home to the Globus textile mill, and planners say the design is a “reference to the area’s historic mills".

The area has a rich recent planning history.

Plans to develop hundreds of flats, shops, a drive-thru and filling station on the land off Thornton Road, the former Globus Mill site on Listerhills Road, and a triangular patch of land in between were approved by Bradford Council last year.

However, shortly afterward a second application for the Thornton Road site was approved – a development of an energy plant that will power a new green heat network for the city centre.

The energy plant development meant the full 300 flat development on the Thornton Road land could not go ahead, and this led to the newer, smaller-scale mixed use development being proposed.

When the Telegraph & Argus visited the site last week the Listerhills Road land, which has recently been overrun with vegetation, was being cleared, with waste being burned on an open bonfire.

The site being cleared last week (Image: T&A)

Approving the scheme, planners said: “The development on Listerhills on the Globus Textiles site would see a building of similar proportions to the mill that formerly stood on the site and as those presently standing in the immediate vicinity of the site.

“The proposed development is suitably designed and the new Globus Building in particular, would make a positive contribution to the appearance of the area and demonstrates a beneficial reuse of a brownfield site for residential development.

“The communal garden on the roof provides outdoor amenity space for the residents in a part of the city which is relatively densely built up.”

Comparing the plans to the previously approved scheme, planners said: “The coffee shop drive-thru is significantly the same as that already granted planning permission.

The Thornton Road site. The Starbucks will be built on the far side, with the energy plant being built on the side closer to the camera. (Image: T&A)

“The mixed commercial and residential development on Listerhills Road would see the introduction of a well-designed building that is reflective of the local architecture with reference to the historic mills that are found in this location.

“The 65 residential units and the two commercial premises will reuse a brownfield site that has been vacant since the demolition of the former mill that stood on the site.”