Development Control - TrustNews Sept 2003
Decisions have been made on several schemes mentioned in previous editions of TrustNews. The reinstatement of the Charles House facade on the corner of Sussex and Upper High Streets has been approved, but if the execution of the recently completed Try Homes development on Eastgate Street is anything to go by, the Trust is very concerned that the detailing needed to provide a satisfactory replacement might not be carried out to an adequate standard.
The King Alfred's College dining room development on Sparkford Road has been withdrawn, and the block of flats proposed to replace The Hermitage, Cheriton Road, has been refused. The applicants of the scheme to demolish Chestnut Mead, Kingsgate Road, and replace it with a block of flats have gone to appeal following refusal, and the Trust has written to the Planning Inspectorate supporting the Local Authority's decision. Winchester College has put in another scheme for Antrim House, St Cross Road, which retains the existing house as a sanatorium, with a smaller library building linking it to the house master's house on the west elevation, and the new boarding house being added on behind. We welcomed the retention of the existing house and felt the new buildings would be acceptable.
Still to be seen at the time of writing is a new scheme for The Grange, 140 St Cross Road, with the density almost halved, (12 units instead of 23), and for a large (about 50 units) back land development in the gardens of several houses on the city side of Chilbolton Avenue.
Schemes being built, nearing or having reached completion, are Winchester College's new Music School, Culver Road, houses at the end of Hillside Close, and two schemes off Dean Lane: the English Courtyard retirement development, and the Linden Homes houses, in what is now called Lupin Gardens.
The past few months have seen a very large number of planning applications going through the system, and if the District applications have arrived in the same abundance as those we have seen for only the Winchester wards, the Planning Department very much deserves our sympathy.
Among the many applications for extensions, dormer windows, conservatories and fascia signs that we've looked at, two proposed conversions were among the most interesting: the post office at 16 Egbert Road to three 1-bedroomed flats (to which we objected, now withdrawn), and the Middle Brook Street premises previously used as a delivery office by the Post Office to a nightclub, to which we also objected.
In view of the requirements of PPG3, it is not surprising that many of the new developments are for residential accommodation, in both central and suburban locations. These schemes range in size from the six units proposed for 13 Cathedral View and the five units for 8A St Thomas Street, to the thirty-four proposed for land behind 64 Quarry Road and the seventy-four units on land on Staple Gardens at present occupied by Northgate House and Documation House. All of these have been objected to by the Trust.
Most of the other schemes were for between about ten and twenty dwellings and, depending upon their appropriateness in density and design, the Trust has also objected to many of these. It is worrying that each of the applications in this flood of new developments has to be considered individually, without their cumulative effect on Winchester's infrastructure as a whole also being taken into account. On present evidence, it seems more than likely that the semi-rural character of roads such as Salters Lane, Dean Lane and Park Road will be lost and become suburbanised, because it will be found necessary to provide adequate access for the additional dwellings that have been built on these narrow roads. It would be good to know that these changes of character were by design rather than by default.