Preston’s latest skyscraper planned to tower over city’s new University Square

The "landmark" building will be the latest skyscraper added to the city's dramatically-changing skyline if councillors give developers the go-ahead.

Plans for the tower block, on the corner of Moor Lane and Walker Street, have been unveiled this week. It would include 120 flats for private rent and fit in with the council's City Living Strategy as Preston continues to go up in the world with a number of other high-rise blocks either planned or under construction.

Moor House is the creation of local firm Portergate Developments (Preston) Ltd who built the nearby £18m Friargate Court project which houses 244 students and was completed in 2016.

The development, which will take two years to build, will offer 104 two-bed apartments and 16 one-bed flats - 84 of them in the 19-storey hexagonal tower and the remaining 36 in a five-storey wing.

The building will sit on land which formerly housed a gas training centre - demolished in 2017 as unsafe. It will be constructed in front of Preston's six-storey telephone exchange and adjacent to 12-storey Telephone House.

The whole area was once the site of the city's former gas works - the Preston Gaslight Company - which was built in the mid-1800s and ceased operating in 1931.

University Square has been created as part of UCLan's £200m Campus Masterplan. It includes two stunning new buildings - the £30m Innovation Engineering Centre and the £60m Student Centre with its civic square. The proposed Moor House would dwarf both on the eastern side of the university quarter redevelopment.

Portergate says that it is not intended as student accommodation. Instead it wants to create "a high-quality residential development with connectivity benefits to the local Enterprise Zones in Lancashire, anticipating future demand for housing in the core city centre."

A report to the council adds: "This will only encourage further investment opportunities, creating employment and prosperity within the new UCLan Hub. The brief was to create a landmark building that will make an important contribution to the regeneration of the site, masking views of the telephone exchange and contributing to the transformational works being undertaken in the area. It will support the City Centre Living Strategy initiative alongside other tall buildings being proposed within the city."

The company says it will "transform the site and will create a sense of arrival into the city centre, complementing the investment already made within and around Adelphi/University Square.” “This includes the City Living Strategy, the object of which is to deliver widespread improvement, growth and regeneration by bringing people back into the city centre to work, live and invest.

"It will assist in creating a thriving city centre living offer exemplifying the best of modern city living. It will also add to the developing skyline of Preston as a successful city signposting it as a place in which to invest."

The tower block will boast a rooftop terrace for up to 100 people and also a ground floor communal lounge with a "work from home" space. It will not have any vehicle parking spaces.

Portergate Developments has asked Preston Council to waive the requirement for 30 per cent of the 120 units to be affordable housing on the grounds of financial viability.