The massive changes to a Nottingham city centre street signals Nottingham's growth, according to local residents. Huntingdon Street runs across the city centre and is a familiar thoroughfare to many residents.
In recent weeks, activity has been growing on the street's demolished Halfords to build a seven-storey student block hosting 293-beds. This is just one part of a deluge of student accommodation construction planned along the street, including a 24-storey building housing 1,260 students planned for the former Victoria Works site.
The construction of these developments has resulted in a large amount of change when paired with a series of business and venue closures along the street. The street's Aldi closed in 2021, with The Foresters Inn pub also shutting in recent years.
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Local residents were generally positive about the ongoing transformation of the street. Retiree Ronald Macpherson, 82, from St Ann's, said: "I have lived here since 1963 and all over the city has changed. I cannot even remember what it used to look like anymore.
"The look and character of it has changed. I suppose it is a good thing for the students and young people, it is all change. It is the same everywhere."
Mark Younger, 58, who moved from Northumberland to Nottingham in 1989, said: "It is a good thing. They did not have any facilities so hopefully all this building will change that.
"I would not recognise this street as the one I walked down when I moved here. It keeps the economy turning over. St Ann's is dead but stuff like this puts money in pockets and creates jobs.
"We need to make progress, Nottingham is a growing city. It's much different from where I am from, there is nothing there."
Off Huntingdon Street on Rick Street, there are plans for a 401 bed student accommodation tower reaching 16 storeys at its highest. Another St Ann's resident, Joan, was slightly less enthusiastic about the changes. "It is not fair because we do not have a supermarket now in the area, but we have all these new buildings popping up.
"I'm a bit fed up with student flats. The speed of it all is unsettling too, in the last few years it has really started to look different."
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