diff --git a/spacy/tests/parser/test_sbd.py b/spacy/tests/parser/test_sbd.py
index 332147177..8ba54060b 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/parser/test_sbd.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/parser/test_sbd.py
@@ -100,15 +100,6 @@ def test_sbd_serialization_projective(EN):
     assert [s.text for s in example.sents] == [s.text for s in example_serialized.sents]
 
 
-def test_sbd_empty_string(EN):
-    '''Test Issue #309: SBD fails on empty string
-    '''
-    doc = EN(u' ')
-    doc.is_parsed = True
-    assert len(doc) == 1
-    sents = list(doc.sents)
-    assert len(sents) == 1
-
 
 # TODO:
 # @pytest.mark.models
diff --git a/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue309.py b/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue309.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..4d69482a0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue309.py
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+# coding: utf-8
+from __future__ import unicode_literals
+
+from ..util import get_doc
+
+
+def test_sbd_empty_string(en_tokenizer):
+    """Test Issue #309: SBD fails on empty string"""
+    tokens = en_tokenizer(" ")
+    doc = get_doc(tokens.vocab, [t.text for t in tokens], heads=[0], deps=['ROOT'])
+    doc.is_parsed = True
+    assert len(doc) == 1
+    sents = list(doc.sents)
+    assert len(sents) == 1