A Mini dealership in Bath could be demolished to make way for two five-storey blocks to house nearly 300 students.

The Dick Lovett Company’s site in Lower Bristol Road sits within the city’s flagship Western Riverside regeneration project to create a new residential quarter.

The firm is planning to level the Mini dealership, an office and a warehouse to

build 290 studio and cluster student bedrooms, with 1,100 sqm of retail space on the ground floor.

The plans say: “The application would provide a significant number of student bedrooms in a highly sustainable urban location.

“The provision of purpose-built student accommodation in this location would potentially free up/limit the demand for larger family-sized dwellings elsewhere in the city, which are occupied by HMOs, and thus help alleviate pressures on the existing housing market.

“As the proposed development does not include any on-site car parking provision, in line with the outline planning permission, it will have very limited impact on local traffic flows and any resulting addition of vehicular emissions.”

There would not be any car parking, but there will be space for the students to store 145 bikes.

The wider Western Riverside development will provide up to 2,281 homes, plus shops, restaurants and student accommodation.

Stephen Sumner, LDRS