Slough planning round-up: Five-storey block of flats turned down

Here are the most significant Slough planning applications from the past week. To see all documents, enter the reference numbers in Slough Borough Council's online planning portal.

Refused: Slough council has rejected plans for a four/five-storey block of flats on the stretch of Bath Road near to Bath Road Shopping Park.

The plan for 397 Bath Road, a little less than half a mile from the park, was for 16 flats in the block and also offered up five two-storey cottages. Part of the flat block would have reached four storeys, and part of it five storeys.

It would have been made up of eight one-bed flats, eight two-beds, and all the cottages would have been for two-bedroom ones. In total this would have housed about 54 people.

Applicant, Ibradavid House Ltd wanted to demolish all temporary structures on the site, which are associated with car washing and car sales there.

Also included would have been a landscaped parking court. The proposals provided 12 parking spaces.

All units were set to have a balcony or roof terrace, or small rear gardens for the cottages.

Both the flats and cottages were set to exceed building regulations in terms of sustainability, ensuring a carbon reduction of 19 per cent on current regulations.

Danks Badnell, architects representing the applicants, also noted that the council has ‘confirmed that the five-year housing targets are not going to be met.’

Therefore the balance ‘will be tilted in favour of approving residential development even with some (acceptable) shortcomings.’

Ibradavid House Ltd took pre-application advice, attempting to mitigate the building height - but still, Slough council rejected the final application.

Planning officers said the block of flats, with its height, bulk and scale, would be ‘overbearing’ and harmful to the street scene, not in keeping with the rest of this stretch of Bath Road, which is mainly two-storey properties.

In addition, the houses to the rear of the site ‘appear to be crammed into the site’ and are of ‘poor form and appearance.’

The area between the flats and houses comprises hard surface parking areas with no meaningful soft landscaping (ie, grass and greenery).

Moreover, the rear gardens are ‘undersized’ and their usability ‘compromised’ as are looking out onto a car park – and thus have ‘poor amenity value’, said officers.

“Overall, the proposal would not create a high quality, beautiful and sustainable place … and would result in the provision of poor-quality housing,” officers concluded.

“If approved, would also set a precedent for further uncharacteristic development across the wider selected key location.”

There were other reasons for the refusal – six in total. Officers criticised the ‘piecemeal over-development of the site’, the lack of daylight in some of the rooms in the apartment block.

There was no noise assessment, and no legal agreement for Section 106 contributions – money paid by developers into the council pot to support related infrastructure.

In this case, that would include funding for education, affordable housing and mitigation of impacts on Burnham Beeches Special Area of Conservation.

Finally, there were traffic concerns. The development proposed an access that would be ‘substandard in width’ and would not allow two-way traffic flow.

This would result in the vehicles reversing onto Bath Road, which would have ‘an unacceptable impact on highway safety.’

P/01175/016

Approved: Slough council has given its consent for a listed building in Colnbrook to be converted from a house into two flats.

The plan is for Badminton House, a two-storey building in Park Street, to be turned from a single home into a one-bed flat and a two-bed flat.

The property has been derelict for over thirty years, wrote chartered town planners Bell Cornwell, on behalf of the applicant.

The significance of Badminton House, especially as it forms part of a single list description with its neighbours, comes from the overall historic importance of the terrace rather than any individual features of Badminton House.

Keeping the terrace intact and maintaining the appearance of the terrace ‘is therefore an important feature of maintaining the significance of the building.

Permission was already granted for work and has been ongoing for the last two years since the applicant inherited the property.

But work was not carried out in accordance with the plans submitted at the time and work had been paused on the advice of Slough’s enforcement team, so that correct permissions could be sought.

P/11491/009

Pending: A proposal has been put forward to ‘retain the last known use’ of a building as a meeting place for the local community

The property, 59 Willoughby Road, is owned by a charitable organisation called the Science of Spirituality Charitable Trust.

It offers fitness, sports, meditation classes, retreats and seminars, book stalls/displays and youth group health activities to the community.

The ‘lawful use’ of the site since 1980 is as a Scout hut.

If a building has not been used for its designated purpose for an extended period, the local planning authority might consider its use class to have lapsed.

The building has been vacant for at least seven years and is ‘in need of internal refurbishment’, say the applicants, Science of Spirituality.

“The local community is very concerned for this building being as vacant, which invites refuge to trespassers and prohibited activities,” they wrote.

“Several incidents have been reported on this site ... [and it] was on police’s patrol plan for months.”

P/05407/004