A private landlord in Kent has submitted plans for what could be the UK’s largest HMO if the scheme gets the go-ahead.

Jamie Copland, who is a major HMO landlord within the Thanet area, is asking its local council planners to green-light the scheme, which is part of his vision to see a large accommodation block converted into ‘cluster flats’.

The block was part of the former Canterbury Christ Church University campus within the seaside town of Broadstairs which has now been empty for six years after the university pulled out of the area.

Copland is asking for a ‘change of use from former student accommodation… to proposed HMO’ featuring 84 one-bedroom apartments at Northwood Court. The application documents lodged on the council’s planning portal outline how “the proposal offers much needed housing accommodation in an area that has seen significant increase in demand for HMOs”.

Vacant

But the site at Northwood Court (main imge) has a chequered history. After the university pulled out, it was bought by a London college in May 2022 which then let it to a company that provides the Government with asylum seeker accommodation, but some conditions of the lease were not met, and it became vacant once more.

A further scheme to use the property to house workers helping build a local tourist attraction, Thanet Earth, also fell through.

Another planning application hopes to turn it into accommodation for care workers while a more controversial one has proposed to use the block to home exclusively asylum-seeking children.

Copland is a significant local developer and landlord with operations both in the Thanet area but also Hampshire, Margate, Ramsgate, Gatwick and Dover and is a director of at least ten companies involved in property development and renting.