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SOMERS Town is set to become a “gown town” after Camden Council approved plans for a 10-storey student accommodation block.

The 600-room development, in St Pancras Way, which will be built on the site of a builder’s yard, was passed by the Town Hall’s planning committee on Thursday. It includes a £230,000 commitment from developers Unite to build a new footbridge over the Regent’s Canal that would lead from St Pancras Way towards the former King’s Cross Railway Lands – where the new University of Arts is set to open in September. 
 

The Travis Perkins building, which currently occupies the site, will be redeveloped with a new warehouse on the ground floor for the building materials company, and 564 student rooms built above. 

The designs include a roof with solar panels to provide hot water. 

It is the third major building project proposed for the Somers Town area in the past 18 months, with other plans including new student housing on the King’s Cross Railway Lands and another project on a former industrial site in Camley Street. When all three are completed, they will provide 1,700 new beds for students – which councillors and businesses say will provide a welcome economic boost for the area’s shops, cafés and pubs. 
 

All three Somers Town ward Labour councillors, Roger Robinson, Pete Brayshaw and Samata Khatoon, expressed support for the plans, insisting they will help free up low-cost rented flats in the area and will help businesses by bringing new customers. 

The Elm Village Residents Association, which is on the other side of the canal, have also given their blessing to the development. 

A spokesman said: “Student residents are likely to enhance the demography and economy of the area. We have heard of no incidents or anti-social behaviour [in other similar schemes locally] and at least some of the residents patronise local shops and our local pub.

“In addition we feel that such accommodation takes some of the competition out of the local market for rented property and so indirectly benefits our young people.”

In the application, Unite said that there was a high number of universities within a 20-minute walk and there is a need for more student housing in Camden.
 

But the news that the scheme will go ahead was not welcomed by members of the Regent’s Canal Conservation Area Advisory Committee. They told planning officials that the building will affect views along the historic canal route and in Royal College Street, where there are listed buildings.

They added: “The application gives no details of the housing mix.”

The King’s Cross Conservation Area Advisory Committee have also expressed misgivings, saying that they feared students would find the area a bleak place to live. 

They added: “The accommodation seems to offer little amenity for the residents. 

“They might expect to find cafés and shops at street level and instead they will be disgorged to a bleak pavement with no local relief to hostile surroundings. The street faced needs humanising.”