Two flats to be built on ground floor of old Fire Station

The majority of the building in Copenhagen Street, home to the city’s fire chiefs until 2015, has been converted into luxury apartments.

But the ground floor has remained empty, despite grand plans for a food hall and wine bar that never came to fruition.

Plans are now coming together to fill the bottom floor of the building.

DESIGNS: One of the flats will be on the corner of Copenhagen Street (Image: KKE Architects)

City planners approved plans last month for a Mathnasium, which will offer extra-curricular maths tuition to school children.

This will take up just under half the available floor space.

Worcester City Council has now also approved plans to build two ground floor flats in the building.

These will occupy two existing units on the ground floor of the Old Fire Station. One is on the corner of Copenhagen Street and one is on Fish Street.

According to planning documents, they are currently vacant but were previously in office and retail use.

DESIGNS: The flats will be on opposite corners of the ground floor of the building (Image: KKE)

City planners say the two units do not contain any “active retail frontage” and suffer from an “awkward internal configuration, restricting their marketability for commercial uses”.

They added: “The ground floor units were unsuccessfully marketed as [commercial] floorspace and the re-use of this vacant retail/office space for residential purposes is considered to be an appropriate alternative use.”

No car parking spaces are being provided for the two flats as the building is deemed to be in a “sustainable” city centre location.

“The existing site benefits from 30 cycle parking spaces which future occupiers of these units will have access to, along with on-street cycle parking,” said planning officers.

Planners also say one of the flats would fall “slightly below” the minimum space standards for a one-bedroom apartment, but “ in this case the minor reduction is accepted based on the mix of units provided across the whole building”.

“Although there is no private outdoor amenity space provided, it is noted that it would not be possible to provide this due to the constraints of the site and the site is in a highly sustainable location, close to public outdoor amenity space including St Andrews Garden of Remembrance and the River Path.”