The Round Hill Society

Carelet 2017 Gatehouse Redesign

Carelet Index

Carelet 2018 Update: BH2018/00881 proposes

• Variation of condition 2, 10 & 20 of application BH2015/01983 and to allow alterations to gate house and refuse & recycling store to approved drawings.
• Variation of condition 2 of application BH2013/03782 to permit change to appearance of gatehouse and alterations to materials of approved development

1. Click on BH2018/00881. 
2. Then (to the left of the green button APPLY) change "Show All" to "Drawings" before clicking on the green button
3. All you will find in the VIEW column on the right is a BLOCK PLAN, which gives no detail whatsoever on what they are proposing instead of the agreed plans.

Insufficient detail in the application

Comment on Application BH2018/00881

Conditions 10 and 20 should not be abandoned

Conditions 10 and 20 make good sense

Application BH2018/00881 further proposes to vary condition 10 ensuring that the appearance of the gatehouse door is in keeping with the conservation area and condition 20 that the development shall not be occupied until the refuse and recycling storage facilities indicated on the approved plans have been fully implemented and made available for use.

It is important that there are proper onsite facilities available to occupants so that their refuse and recycling does not spill over into the street.

Description: Variation of conditions 10 and 20 RE compatibility of gatehouse door with conservation area :

10. Appearance door to be compatible with CA

Condition 10. The development hereby permitted shall be carried out in full accordance with the submitted details of the gatehouse door shown on drawing 1394-P-004-P6 received on 13/03/2017 and shall be retained as such.

Reason: To ensure a satisfactory appearance to the development and to comply with policy CP15 of the Brighton and Hove City Plan Part one and policy HE6 of the Brighton & Hove Local Plan.

20. Implementation of plans for refuse and recycling facilities

and (20) full implementation of plans for refuse and recycling facilities

Condition 20 The development hereby approved shall not be occupied until the refuse and recycling storage facilities indicated on the approved plans have been fully implemented and made available for use. These facilities shall thereafter be retained for use at all times.

Proper on-site facilities are needed:-

Will the Council stick to conditions and a refusal which avoids this?

Reason: To ensure the provision of satisfactory facilities for the storage of refuse and recycling and to comply with policy QD27 of the Brighton & Hove Local Plan.

Application BH2017/00175 was to vary:

[1] the design of their gatehouse (from a pitched to flat roof)

[2] the location of the recycling / refuse / glass stores
from indoor (within the gatehouse) to an outside location.

The developer Carelet has submitted Planning application BH2017/00175 - which was APPROVED on 24th April 2017.

Click here to see the planning decision and conditions of approval.

Carelet explains in their planning note that geo-technical assessment (i.e. investigation into chalk and soil) has indicated that construction of the approved Gatehouse (BH2015/01983) is virtually impossible.

The Gatehouse proposed in Planning application BH2017/00175 would be substantially reduced in size, losing the function of providing indoor accommodation for individual refuse & recycling bins (which could be protected by key) for the  six large  households.

Instead of having individual bins, residents would have the communal use (at street-level) of:

1. ONE 1100 litre Recycling Larger Wheelie bin and
2. ONE 1100 litre Refuse Larger Wheelie bin.
3. ONE 360 litre Recycling Glass bin

The bins for refuse and recyclables would be outdoors, tucked behind the horse chestnut tree in front of the Gatehouse. The glass bin would be located just east of the entrance to their staircase.

You will need to zoom in on the bottom part of the mid 'Ground Floor' section of Carelet's proposed Gatehouse Plans to see this. The circle (to the bottom right of the diagram) marks the location of the protected horse chestnut tree.

Has Carelet planned for sufficient bin capacity?

Their diagram showing Refuse & Recycling Layout shows both the bin locations and the capacities.

Carelet has consulted City Clean about the size of the bins.  I felt that the indoor space shown in their approved plan BH2015/01983 would have caused problems. Many local authorities allocate a 240 litre bin per household for recycling, so six of these comes to 1,440 litres.

The outdoor location chosen for the bins would make things more accessible for City Clean - less likely to lead to missed collections and a higher probability that bins would be returned to their site.

The proposal provides for 1,100 litres Recylables + 360 litres glass, so it approximately covers the 1,440 litre provision that I felt would be needed when I objected to BH2015/01983 which (though approved) has proved virtually impossible to deliver.

Gate-house design - CA area architecture?

Proposals for which Carelet has already got planning permission all specify that the Gatehouse should have a pitched roof to match the other roofs in the terrace to the NE of Princes Road. 

The flat-roofed form of design now proposed would look like an extension to the end-of-terrace (81 Princes Road) and may look ugly in long public views of the conservation area from the NE (e.g. Davey Drive), detracting from appreciation of the stepped terrace of Round Hill's most northerly street. 

Abandoning plans for indoor refuse/recycling storage will save the developer a significant amount in construction costs, so it is only right that the developer considers the aesthetic of our conservation area in the design of the minimum they are obliged to provide. Zoom in on the proposed elevations to get an idea of the look. It could be argued that the reduction in the built-area is an improvement and that landscaping could take care of the simpler Gatehouse proposed. There could still be scope for improvement from some angles.

Let the Case Officer know your views

It is possible to comment without either objecting to or supporting a proposal. Concerns may be expressed by suggesting conditions.

• The geo-technical assessment consists entirely of data and omits any logical argument indicating that BH2017/00175 is more than a cost-saving exercise, compromising the quality of what was approved. Why is the currently agreed pitched Gatehouse roof in character with the adjoining house in the conservation area "virtually impossible to build"?
• 81 Princes Road has been used for site access and clearance of rubble while Carelet’s 6 houses have been constructed. A planning condition is needed to ensure that 81 Princes Road is returned to better repair before any structure is grafted onto it. The Gatehouse now proposed in BH2017/00175 functions purely as a transit facility. Is this a temporary structure with future demolition of 81 Princes Road in mind?
• In the planning note, the developer mentions a PDF from their arboricultural consultant arguing that the new proposal (i.e. the location of the bins) would not impinge on the TPO tree. I note that a report by Nicholas Jones Consultants Limited has now been uploaded to the Council's planning register. It is important that the method statement in the report is followed, since siting communal bins within the Root Protection Area of the TPO tree would concentrate far more weight than individual bins. Soil compaction & contamination risks to the health of the tree has been mentioned several times in previous reports, refusals and planning conditions, with hand-digging being conditioned as a necessary requirement during construction work. 
• The developer says that larger communal wheelie bins have been successfully adapted in a similar sized development in the city, but without saying where. Proposal BH2017/00175 would put just three large communal bins where opportunists (not their intended users) could see them and get to them without being watched. There would be resistance in our hilly neighbourhood to a roll-out of communal bins to be kept on all streets. Our shortage of on-street parking space is also the reason why Carelet's development is car-free. This makes it all the more important that bins, which cannot be watched over by residents on backland two storeys down, are not fly-tipped. I recollect the difficulties Carelet had in preventing fly-tipping on their site, when dumping opportinities were visible in earlier years.
• Previous refusals to Carelet’s schemes (e.g. BH2010/00083) have highlighted access concerns. A reduced structure, used purely for transit, is very different from a Gatehouse where letters or packages could be collected, people could shelter from the elements while waiting for a taxi / delivery / or help in an emergency.

Links to previous concerns

2015 Inadequate on-site space for bins