Restaurant, takeaway and dessert bar plan for former Preston social club

Permission was granted back in July to convert part of the Jubilee Club - on St. Mary’s Street North, directly opposite Preston Prison - into a café and car wash.

The proposal would have seen little more than a tenth of the building occupied, with the remainder staying vacant and available only for future use as a social club.

However, a new application has now been submitted to Preston City Council to subdivide the building into five units to create a cafe/restaurant, hot food takeaway, a dessert bar, and two non-specified retail premises.

The approved hand car wash and valeting service has been removed from the blueprint for the plot altogether.

A statement accompanying the application says that the applicant, Preston-based Castle Homes Estates - “seeks to put the vacant building to a more effective use, one that promotes consumer choice, creates jobs and generates sustainable economic development”.

It adds that the principle of development has been accepted in permitting the previous proposal - meaning that the city council have “confirmed the acceptability of the loss of the social club” at the location.

The document notes that the small size of the two shops proposed demonstrates that they would “clearly serve a local need only and are not of a scale that would impact the vitality of the nearest [town or district] centre”.

Under the previous plans the car wash would have operated from the car park for 10 hours a day, reducing the number of parking spaces on offer while it was trading. The removal of that facility means that 25 spaces will be permanently available and the planning statement adds that the development would be located on a “high frequency bus route”, with the nearest stops a one-minute walk away.

If the new proposal were rejected, the previous permission for the cafe and car wash could still be implemented.