Land east of Stanmore Primary School, St

Land east of Stanmore Primary School, Stanmore Lane, Winchester

Being the site of the school’s dining hall (now demolished), this cleared land, enjoying access from Stanmore Lane, was being disposed of by Hampshire County Council.

My clients made a bid for the land with an option to purchase, subject to obtaining planning permission to develop the site residentially.

A pre-application enquiry was held with Winchester City Council, putting forward a number of potential housing layouts.

This application and those subsequently submitted, were supported by plans and drawings prepared by R.S. Architectural of Eastleigh.

Whilst this became quite a long iterative process, it proved to be a very useful exercise given the site constraints and constructive advice received from the Council’s urban design officer, case officer and environmental health officer.

Constraints at the site included buried underground electricity cables crossing the site, from a large electricity sub-station to the north. The Southampton to London railway line passes by the eastern boundary, raised up and crossing Stanmore Lane via a bridge. The sub-station and passing trains made creating satisfactory living environments inside the dwellings a challenging proposition. Venta Acoustics were brought on board to assess noise impacts and make recommendations as part of the overall emerging design/layout solution.

Access to the site was via a narrow lane giving a secondary point of access to the school which petered out into a public footpath to the south. The canopies of mature trees within the school overhung the track and it was necessary to obtain further arboricultural advice from Barrell Tree Consultancy, to ensure that improvements to the track, required by Hampshire County Council as a condition of sale, did not harm the trees.

A full design and access statement was prepared by ACHIEVE and the County Council sanctioned the use of several other technical reports, including highways impact.

Initially an Outline application was submitted for 9 dwellings under council reference 18/00646/OUT, with all matters for consideration, except landscaping. 5 detached houses were approved, along with an apartment block, whose axis had been turned through 900, to turn its back on the electricity sub-station, making an acoustic barrier (along with a new 3m high) acoustic fence for the houses opposite it.

Subject to some minor adjustments and needing to make a deputation to the council’s Planning Committee, this was granted conditional permission, giving the applicant the confidence to complete the purchase from the county council.

The application did however raise some issues for the school, who need to continue to access the track for school meal deliveries. Close liaison was maintained with the county council at this point to ensure its concerns were addressed.

The implications of this were revisited via a full planning application (18/02917/FUL), which showed a slightly altered red line, to demonstrate access would still be available to the lorry used to service the school and allowing that lorry to turn into the cul-de-sac spur to serve the new housing. Vehicle tracking was plotted by CAD precision Ltd. The applicant also took the opportunity to further optimise floor areas of dwellings.

Full permission for 9 dwellings (4 x 2 bed apartments and 5 houses (1 x 4 bed, 2 x 3 bed and 2 x 2 bed) was granted on 11 March 2019.