Fancy living in a police station? Well this surprising proposition might just become an option – without you needing to get into trouble with the law first.

AWW Architects have submitted a planning application to turn Barking’s iconic former police station in Ripple Road into 24 flats.

The applicants hope to convert the redbrick three storey station, retaining the original frontage of the building, and demolish some of the rear outbuildings to make way for an additional five storey building.

Architects say the scheme, which will house one bedroom and two bedroom apartments above ground floor retail space space, should “breathe new life” into the empty building, which closed last year.

They also say that the development will assure the building’s well-being for the future, while “creating a new focus in the heart of Barking”.

The designs submitted include space for a central communal courtyard including timber seating and raised brick planters.

The planning application notes that development’s mix of retail and residential use would add to the area’s “vitality, viability and safety”.

It adds: “The scheme proposes minimal alterations to this historic asset to preserve and enhance all the features that make Barking distinctive and to continue to provide the community with its sense of place and history”.

Barking police station is locally listed and was built circa 1910 and designed by architect John Dixon Butler, surveyor to the Metropolitan Police.

It was replaced with a police counter at Barking Learning Centre in the Town Square in October last year following a restructure.