Car park plan approved for Preston prime site

The Preston city centre site where the Odeon cinema and Tokyo Jo’s nightclub once stood is to return to being a car park – but with the hope that housing will eventually be built there.

Councillors gave the go-ahead to the prime plot, off Church Street, having a second stint as a 116-space pay-and-display facility after hearing it was the best way of ensuring a more suitable use was found for it in the future.

A temporary car park operated on the land after it was largely cleared following a fire that ripped through the two redundant buildings in May 2022. At that point, the cinema – whose art deco facade is still standing – had been empty for 30 years and the nightspot had been reinvented several times, before finally ending up as Evoke, which closed in 2020.

The two-year parking permission previously granted by Preston City Council’s planning committee lapsed in January 2025 – and the site, which is accessed from Syke Street and Main Sprit Weind, has been empty ever since.

Committee members were asked at a recent meeting to approve the creation of permanent car park – against local planning policy – on the basis that was the most realistic route to achieving the residential development the city authority ultimately wants to see delivered in the location.

A majority of the councillors on the committee accepted the parking proposal after town hall planners recommended giving it the green light – but with a safety net that meant the permission would be granted only to the applicant, Progressive Living, and not attached to the site itself.

That uncommon arrangement means that should the plot be sold on, the car park permission would cease – and the new owner would have to apply to renew it or to use the land for any other purpose.

A report by council planning officers explained that Progressive Living had engaged in “extensive discussions” with the authority about the future of the site – and had outlined its “aspirations” to develop a residential-led scheme. That would be in line with the council’s ambition to create an “urban village” in the Stoneygate area of the city centre.

However, the committee was told that the lack of any current permission for the site limited its “market value” and, in turn, “the ability to secure [the] investment and funding necessary to progress redevelopment proposals”. The land’s value would be increased by the car park approval, making it easier to finance the longer-term vision for the land, members heard.

The rationale divided opinion on the committee. Its deputy chair, Cllr Sara Holmes, said while she appreciated the predicament of the applicant, she was worried about the site “being tied up as a car park [indefinitely] through circumstances perhaps beyond the developer’s control”.

“It concerns me that, potentially, we are agreeing that this is a car park forever and a day,” Cllr Holmes said.

However, committee member Rob Walsh suggested that refusing the parking proposal was a sure-fire way of guaranteeing that any fears about an unwanted future for the plot would be realised.

“Obviously, [it being a car park for good] is a concern we all have – but this is the best way to actually get this site to a stage where we can have development on it.

“So your worst fears will 100 percent come true if you decline [the application], because…the land will be worthless and you will be looking at this for the next 10 years wondering, ‘Why the hell did I die on a hill of denying planning permission for this car park?’” Cllr Walsh predicted.

Manchester-based Progress Living specialises in regenerating previously used, so-called ‘brownfield’ land.

City council planning officer Josh Hellawell said the car park proposal was “the best chance” of a more substantial and desirable longer-term plan being brought forward – and that was why he was “comfortable” recommending its approval.

The planning report acknowledged that the car park strategy did not mean it was certain a housing development would eventually get off the ground, but that the approach “strikes an appropriate balance between maintaining support for the…regeneration aspirations for the site and recognising the current viability constraints affecting its redevelopment”.

The cinema facade will be unaffected by the now approved car park, which will one again operate as an effective extension of an existing pay-and-display facility off Syke Street.