AN office block will be converted into flats as part of a scheme described by critics as “human warehousing”.

Plans for 48 flats will go ahead with London and Country Investments Limited converting Riverside House, Lower Southend Road, Wickford, into the one bedroom homes.

The scheme was approved under what is known as permitted development.

It allows developers to sidestep the normal planning procedures and convert warehouses or disused office blocks into homes where there is a need.

However, critics claim the flats are often too small with concerns raised by police, schools and doctors’ surgeries that the right infrastructure is not in place to cope.

A planning statement reads: “The proposed change of use which aims to provide additional residential accommodation within the existing property is considered to be suitable and acceptable in acoustic terms.

“The applicant is keen to ensure that the future occupiers of the residential flats are safeguarded from future detriment of their health and quality of life due to unacceptable noise disturbance.”

Residents said it is overdevelopment.

Claire Gardner, 44, of Lower Southend Road, Wickford, said: “This is too many homes for that block.

“They will be too close together and small.

“I don’t think it should be allowed.”

A bid to turn the same site into 50 flats was thrown out at the start of the year.

It was blocked by the council as the application was criticised for the “limited details submitted”.

A spokesman for the developer said: “Each flat has a bedroom, lounge with open-plan kitchen and bathroom. Each flat also has one parking space. The building is of a high-quality construction having been built in 1988, very much in a residential style.

“It is our view that if the office suits cannot be let then conversion of this building to residential use would be a benefit to the area and to the community.” The borough already has hundreds of flats under permitted development rules.