A large office space that has been left vacant for nearly a year could soon be set to be in use again.

The space at the Parklands in Horwich has been unoccupied since the Royal Bank of Scotland moved its offices out in November last year.

But now a plan has been put forward to change the ground floor to storage space with a single storey extension.

A statement from The Emmerson Group said: “Additional self storage space at The Parklands would help the existing secure storage business to expand.

“The existing self-store business is located on the ground floor of the adjacent multi-storey car park and a single storey link would be provided across to the ground floor of Parklands 3.

The plan has been put before Bolton Council (Image: Orbit Developments)

“Customers would therefore be able to utilise the existing entrance to the self storage business, rather than the office entrance of Parklands 3.

“Other than the proposed new single storey link, there are no changes to the elevation of the building.”

The bid comes at a busy time for the Parklands, just next to Middlebrook Retail Park, which has seen a string of new companies join in recent months.

Most of them have joined in the Parklands 1A and 1B buildings, while the bid for the old RBS space focuses on Parklands 3.

The developers said that while there are no parking spaces inside the application site, there are more than 1,000 spaces in front of the building and in the multi-storey car park next door.

So far Bolton Council’s highways team have said that they hope the planned new use of the building will help to reduce traffic and the demand for parking in the area.

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A report said: “The proposal will potentially generate less traffic/parking demand than the existing office use associated with the premises.

“The site benefits from a highway level of off-road parking and could be considered a reasonably sustainable location.

“On this basis, no reasonable objections on highway grounds to what is being proposed under this application.”

This application was put before Bolton Council on Wednesday June 12.

The authority will aim to decide whether or not to approve the bid by Wednesday August 7 this year.