THIS once grand looking Stourbridge home on Worcester Street is being demolished to make way for a new apartment block.

Dudley's planners approved demolition of the Tudor style 'interwar building' which sits between the 2006-built Red Admiral apartments and The Old Dispensary/Henwood School of Dance and Dramatic Art which is now home to an insurance broker.

It is currently being pulled down to make way for a three-storey block with six new apartments plus courtyard parking area, bin store facilities and electric vehicle charging points.

A design and access statement prepared for Dunclent Properties Ltd says the building, known as Tudor House, was "assessed as structurally unviable for conversion".

It says redevelopment of the site will provide six two-bedroom apartments over three floors with each property offering "contemporary open plan living, dining and kitchen area with master bedroom en-suite and additional bedroom with bathroom facilities".

The apartments, which will be accessed from an existing access road off New Road/the ring road, will also come with two allocated parking spaces each.

A report by Dudley Council's planning department says the layout and design of the development are appropriate for the area and it will help to help meet demand for new homes in the borough without any "significant adverse impact on existing residents or the local highway network".

It says the apartment block will be a "high-quality development, which is considered would make a positive contribution to the area and which constitutes sustainable development".

A previous scheme to build eight new apartments on the site, which falls just outside the High Street Stourbridge Conservation Area, was approved in November 2016 but the newly approved proposal only provides six "to optimise and respect the local context in order for the design not to over bear neighbouring properties" - the design and access statement adds.

The apartment block will be contemporary in design with elevations that "make appreciation of the traditional architecture found along Worcester Street".

Stourbridge councillor Steve Clark said of the plan: "It was a beautiful old building. I'm sad to see it go. Hopefully the new apartments will be nice places to live in."