Plans to transform the former home of two regional dailies into a riverside housing and business development have been revealed.

The proposal could see up to 4,000 people living and working at the site of the now demolished offices of the Yorkshire Evening Post and the Yorkshire Post in Leeds.

The land at Wellington Street in the city has been vacant since the Johnston Press titles moved their operations to the nearby No1 Leeds building on Whitehall Road two years ago.

The plans, unveiled by the current landowner’s agent Fox Lloyd Jones, could include offices, a top class hotel, a residential tower, restaurants, convenience stores, lesiure facilities and open spaces if given the green light.

Specific proposals include three detached office buildings intended as headquarters for companies and a residential tower containing 200 homes.

The office’s iconic tower, the only part of it still standing, could be incorporated into the development on the banks of the River Aire.

If planning permission is granted the first occupants could be in place by 2017.

Before the move to Whitehall Road both titles had been based at the purpose-built five acre site since 1970.

The £5m building, which itself had replaced their previous offices at the junction of Commercial Street and Albion Street, was opened by Prince Charles on 28 September that year.

The land on which the offices stood was bought by YP Real Estate earlier this year at a cost of £2m.