Council plans to buy tower approved for 130 flats

Council chiefs are planning to buy a vacant city-centre office block where plans to convert it into flats were approved last year.

The 11-storey Blackburn House in Hanley has been empty since HM Revenue and Customs closed down its Stoke-on-Trent office in 2019.

Plans to convert the building into 130 flats were approved in 2025, but work on the scheme has yet to start.

The city council has not said what it plans to do with Blackburn House once the purchase has been completed.

The building occupies a strategically important location next to the Etruscan Square regeneration site, according to a council report.

Its continued vacancy and the associated anti-social behaviour would undermine the area's regeneration, the document said.

New plans for affordable homes on the Etruscan Square site are being drawn up by the authority's development partners PfP Igloo and Genr8, with work on the project set to start next year.

The council will make a final offer for Blackburn House based on an independent valuation.

If this offer is not accepted by the building's owner, the authority will look to make the case for a compulsory purchase.

Council cabinet member for regeneration Finlay Gordon-McCusker said: "We're working to support the development of Etruscan Square and prevent it from being blighted."

But he gave assurances that the first phase of the Etruscan Square development would not be contingent on the purchase of Blackburn House.

While a new planning application for the project has yet to come forward, it is understood that development will start at the Charles Street end of the site.

The former Iceland supermarket is being demolished to make way for this scheme.

Etruscan Square was allocated £20m from the government's Levelling Up Fund in 2021, most of which has yet to be spent.

Council planning committee members granted prior approval to change the use of Blackburn House from office space to residential to create 130 self-contained apartments in March last year.

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations.

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