PLANS are in place to build a block of 18 flats in place of run down industrial buildings at Roots Hall in Southend.

A planning application has been submitted to Southend Council to demolish a two-storey former B2-General Industrial building at 25 to 27 Roots Hall Avenue and replace it with a four-storey building.

The site has become overgrown with weeds, with vegetation growing through the concrete.

The application said: “The development will have more positive impact on the character and appearance of the existing building, street scene and wider area.

“The existing building, whilst two-storey is proportioned as a three-storey building and this has been utilised in the proposed design by effectively appearing to add just a roof.”

The development already has outline planning permission from Southend Council.

If approved, the development will mark the start of the transformation of the Roots Hall site which will be completed following the transfer of Southend United Football Club to a proposed new stadium at Fossetts Farm off Eastern Avenue, Southend.

The club is set to build 675 homes at Roots Hall when it moves to its planned new home.

The club is about to build a 21,000-seater stadium at Fossetts Farm. The development, currently being considered by planning officers, will also have a mix of shops, restaurants and flats.

The Roots Hall site in Victoria Avenue is pivotal to the stadium plans, providing funding towards the stadium.

Development of the Roots Hall site has a long history. Former plans to build a major Sainsburys store on the site, which would have kick started the new stadium, fell flat after a downturn in the supermarket’s fortunes saw it concentrate on smaller outlets.

Plans to buy the derelict Prospects College site at Roots Hall rumbled on for years before it was finally sold in a deal which helped fuel a £23million higher education investment project in south Essex. The college site had been key to the supermarket plans, standing at the proposed entrance to the new Sainsburys.

The application for the new flats has been submitted by Icon ECDB Ltd. It is not linked to Southend United’s plans.