Drinkwater House would like to welcome all our students old and new!!!  This year we are excited with the opening of our brand block, we have listened to our students that live at Drinkwater House, and designed the building with what they would like. Therefore we have put in facilities such a gymnasium, games room, cinema room and more, so that all our students staying at the complex, will have a more enjoyable stay at Drinkwater House.

Firstly, if you’re reading this it’s because you have been successful in gaining a place at university so congratulations!!

Moving away from home to start university will probably be the biggest step you will take so far in your life. Forget sixth form and college, uni is the first time in your education where you are fully independent. It’s all on you... from getting yourself up for early morning lectures, visiting the library for resources and setting deadlines for assignments… there’s no teachers to micro manage your schedule and keep you on track.

Developer reveals plan to turn Sunderland's former

Joplings department store into student flats

A fresh plan has been submitted to redevelop the former Joplings site seven years after the long-running Sunderland department store closed its tills.

The latest vision is to convert the five-storey building into flats for 178 students, along with three shop units.

Joplings shut in June 2010 and several attempts to redevelop the site have come to nothing. Only last year, Sunderland City Council approved a plan to build a 122-bed hotel on the site.

But the latest planning application, which Jaspia submitted last week, reveals the hotel plan has fallen through for “unknown reasons”.

Previous failed plans led to Jaspia buying the Joplings site and putting forward a proposal which has a primary aim of bringing the empty building back into use.

Joplings served Sunderland for 206 years.

Before closing in 2010, Joplings had operated in John Street from 1956, where it reopened after a fire burned the High Street old store down in 1954.

Jaspia’s planning application details how it the developer aims to incorporate the department store’s original features into the student flats.

It says: “This development aims to reuse the original building form by way of retaining the existing brickwork facade which gives the building its character.

“With the additional feature of full-length glazed windows to the fourth floor level to maximise the internal views out, whilst softening this bland 20th-century building with a contemporary appearance.”

The three ground-floor retail units would have separate entrances to the student apartments, which would go on the first, second, third and fourth levels.

Extra space will be added to the fourth floor as part of the plans.

The applicants said a similar extension was approved by Sunderland City Council in 2008 but never materialised.