Plans for £25m student village

A £25 million student village is set to be built in Wolverhampton, revolutionising university accommodation in the city.

Three blocks of 151 flats are set to be created.

They will be built on land bordered by Wednesfield Road, Culwell Street and Lock Street. The development will be opposite the multi-million pound leisure, retail and residential complex on the site of the historic Low Level station and will revitalise the empty land.

University accommodation firm Victoria Hall is behind the scheme and bosses said today that the plan would transform student living in Wolverhampton.

Each room will have en-suite bathrooms, broadband internet access and Sky television. There will also be a gym and other communal areas.

Chief executive officer at London-based Victoria Hall Bob Crompton said: "There is a chronic shortage of student accommodation in Wolverhampton and this is just what the city needs.

"We carried out research with students in Wolverhampton about what their needs were and this is what we came up with.

"The site is near to the city centre and the university and importantly for students, close to the railway station.

"It will complement the nearby Low Level station development and the forthcoming railway station expansion. We intend to bring a vibrancy into the city and the university."

A planning application has been lodged with Wolverhampton City Council and will take several months to be processed.

The University of Wolverhampton has several blocks of student halls, but thousands live in private houses, particularly in the Whitmore Reans and Penn Fields areas.

Figures out earlier this year show rents for student houses in the city are the third lowest in the country and almost £20 a week below the national average.

It is several years since new accommodation was built in Wolverhampton but the university has invested nearly £10 million in developing a new student village at Walsall Campus containing 340 new high-quality en-suite study bedrooms.

Roger Williams, director of facilities at the University of Wolverhampton, said: "We are not involved with the proposal, it is independent of the university. However, we are aware of the application."