Willoughby Street is a mixed development estate in Lenton, Nottingham. The main bulk of the development consists of five tower blocks of 16 and 17 storeys.
The initial plans for the redeveloped area envisaged many more tower blocks than were eventually built. Willoughby Street was to be retained in its entirety, but widened, and new blocks of shops were to be positioned at intervals along its length. Test borings at the lower end of the street, however, revealed that the rock structure was inadequate to support such tall blocks of flats as were planned so the plans had to be altered.
Instead a low-rise development was designed and the proposal to retain Willoughby Street as a through route was abandoned. The shops were concentrated instead in the middle of the site arranged around a pedestrian precinct area.
The tower blocks were used as a backdrop to the posters and in the Anton Corbijn film Control about Joy Division's singer Ian Curtis.