Retirement flats spark outburst

Retirement flats spark outburst

5:00pm Tuesday 7th June 2011

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A ROW has broken out after a developer won a planning appeal to build a big retirement complex in the heart of Basingstoke.

McCarthy and Stone Retirement Living is now able to build a 94-home blocks of flats on the site of the former Webber’s and Alan Gibson car dealerships in New Road.

A planning inspector has overruled Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council – who twice turned the scheme down.

The £8million plans consist of 60 “assisted-living” apartments and 34 “retirement living” apartments in two buildings on the 0.7 hectare plot.

Work is set to begin by the end of this year on the new buildings, which will be two and four storeys high and include communal facilities and 34 car park spaces.

As part of the planning agreement, McCarthy and Stone will make contributions towards improving the tennis courts, bowls green and seating areas in the War Memorial Park.

One of the chief reasons why the planning inspector gave the go-ahead for the scheme was that the borough council does not have enough land available for building new houses.

Now an opposition councillor in whose ward the new complex will be built, is calling for the borough’s planning chief – Councillor Rob Golding – to resign.

Gavin James, a Liberal Democrat who represents Eastrop ward, said the development is too bulky and in the wrong style. And he blamed the Conservative administration at the council for allowing
McCarthy and Stone to win its appeal.

He said: “The council has been reviewing housing land supply for several years, delaying the process at every opportunity. The Tory administration is paid to make tough decisions to protect
Basingstoke. It has failed to do this.”

He added: “Rob Golding has to accept responsibility for the fact this has been allowed. He has been negligent.”

In response, Cllr Golding said the administration had been trying for “well over a year” to get discussions moving with regard to land supply but had found it difficult to engage with opposition
members.

He told The Gazette: “We need to make progress because if we don’t we are at risk of planning inspectors giving permission that
they may not otherwise have done.” He added he expects major decisions on land to be made this summer.

The developer had an application for 134 new homes on the site rejected in 2009. Its latest, scaled-back plans were rejected by Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council in September last year, forcing
McCarthy and Stone to appeal to the planning inspectorate. The councillors objected to the size and style of the complex.

Planning inspector Jonathan Roberts conducted a two-day hearing into the plans at the Civic Offices, in London Road, in April, In his report, he said of the McCarthy and Stone plan: “It would
signal the start of the re-development of an area which the council has long sought to revitalise.”

Because he did not believe the borough council had enough land available for development, he added: “In such circumstances, applications for residential developments should be considered
favourably.”

Alex Child, a director at the Planning Bureau, who act as planning agents for McCarthy and Stone said the development would benefit Basingstoke.

He told The Gazette: “The majority of older Basingstoke residents who are home owners have not had the housing choice that they need in the town where they have lived and want to remain.

“This development, once open, will at last begin to provide this choice.”

The properties are expected to be ready for sale in late 2012 and early 2013.

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