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This page is from the Round Hill Society archives which are available for historic interest. Please bear in mind when viewing archived pages that details may no longer be current.

Crescent Road 2017

Site + permission sold to AMF (Crescent Rd) Ltd prior to auction

The property to rear of 28 Crescent Road was withdrawn from the rightmove auction on 7th Sept 2017 because there wasn't enough interest in it.  The Guide Price then set was  £650,000- £700,000.

The property was  scheduled for re-auction by www.auctionhouse.co.uk at 14.30 on Thursday 19th October 2017 at Clarendon Villas Church, 21-23 Clarendon Villas, Hove, but was "sold prior".

The purchaser was AMF (Crescent Road) Ltd - a company formed for this development. See sale price.

Following the approval of Application BH2016/00862 by Brighton and Hove City Council's planning committee on 12th October 2016, the site owner has been attempting to sell on the land / existing buildings + permission for four houses. 

The slides used in auction listings have presented (much more clearly than any illustrations submitted during the planning process) the damaging impact that urban cramming would have on the several households in Crescent Road and Belton Road. These existing terraces are greatly in need of the narrow green vista which has separated them for most of their history. The slides also confirm the view that privacy and access are likely to affect the attraction of the scheme to prospective residents, who would not be eligible for parking permits since the permission is for car-free. 

The price paid for this property in 2014 was stated then as £425,000.

Although the concept of conversion was partly used to justify the number of units (now approved), the old shed at the north end and the derelict garage at the south end do not make a helpful contribution in terms of the construction of the approved design.


application

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Included as the footprints of previous development in order to present BH2016/00862 to the planning authorities as "a conversion scheme"  (i.e. a change from commercial use to residential),  these outbuildings would need to be removed and replaced by new-build.

Set on high ground (a strip of land barely 13 metres in width) and very close to neighbouring properties, objectors to BH2016/00862 doubted that the footprints of these outbuildings would be suitable for new housing. Sunken rooms were incorporated into the approved design to protect against overlooking.

The concept of conversion was also extended to the annex to the main buildings, set further back from Crescent Road but also unhelpfully located on high ground too close to gardens and homes to the west (set on a lower plain belonging to the east side of Belton Road). Canted widows were offered in the approved design also to mitigate against overlooking.


application

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The use of the greenspace on the raised strip, marked out in the approved design as a garden (to be shared by two of the new households) also  raises privacy issues between new and existing residents.

An additional challenge with the Crescent Road site is the care which would be needed in clearance and decontamination, since materials used in old commercial laundries harbour associated risks.

Successful selling on of permitted schemes to other developers usually depends on the value of permissions justifying the asking price.  Permission in itself does not mean that a scheme is easy to build or that  a design will be economically viable. 

The developer Carelet also attempted to sell on their plot + planning permission, but opted in the end to take on the construction of a revised scheme themselves. They purchased their greenfield site, unsuitable for any car-parking, early in 2004. Now in 2017, their car-free development is nearing completion and its viability will now be tested by the level of interest  of people wishing to live in the surroundings which have replaced the former plot - the home of two horses when I first moved to Round Hill before the removal of the abbatoir and the intensification of Hollingdean Depot.

This page was last updated by Ted on 27-Jan-2019
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