Issue - meetings

Alterations to elevations of existing car park building to enclose upper floor for commercial use (Class E), including brickwork and windows; associated works including new ramp and staircase; and landscaping alterations at Trinity Court, Church Street, Rickmansworth.

Recommendation: that planning permission be granted subject to conditions.

The application was for alterations to elevations of existing car park building to enclose upper floor for commercial use (Class E), including brickwork and windows; associated works including new ramp and staircase; and landscaping alterations at Trinity Court, Church Street, Rickmansworth.

The Planning Officer reported that a query had been raised in advance of the committee meeting regarding an earlier permission at the site.  Clarification was provided that the wider site was subject to a separate prior approval permission for the conversion of the three-storey office building to 38 residential flats, although this permission had not been implemented.  The application now before the committee had been assessed on its own merits and against the existing situation of the three-storey building still being in office use.  Officers considered that, should the application be approved, both permissions could in theory be implemented; however, condition one of the prior approval permission would be breached.  This condition related to the layout and provision of car parking across the site, as some of the parking provision would be lost through the proposed conversion of the car park to commercial space under this application.  To regularise this, the prior approval permission would need to be the subject of a variation of condition application.  As stated in the officer report, if the development were proposed to be implemented under the existing circumstances of the three-storey building being retained in office use, this would result in a total over-supply of five car parking spaces across the whole site.  The adopted parking standards dictated that the existing office use should provide 83 car parking spaces.  If the building were to be converted to residential use, total demand for car parking spaces would be 70.  This meant that the demand for parking, if the prior approval permission were implemented, would be less.  Officers were therefore of the opinion that if both schemes were implemented, an attempt to regularise condition one would be likely to be subject to objection by the local planning authority.

Parish Councillor Diana Barber of Batchworth Community Council spoke against the application.

Points raised by the speaker against the application included: the proposal involved a change of use and should be refused; the proposal would result in a building which would be highly dominant and overwhelm the street scene; consideration was needed to the context of the surroundings of the Batchworth Lock corridor; the proposal conflicted with the Batchworth Neighbourhood Plan; there was a diminishing demand for commercial space and a general over-supply in the area so that the proposal would not contribute to the economic development of the locality; and there were concerns about contamination following many years of use by motor vehicles.

In response to the points raised by the speaker against the proposal, the Planning Officer confirmed that most of the issues raised had been addressed in the report.  Whilst it was acknowledged that the appearance of the building would be altered from its current form, details of materials were conditioned to be supplied  ...  view the full minutes text for item 143