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Image courtesy of Anders Roberts Cheer

Bournemouth Borough Council: Pure Town Planning are delighted to announce that following a successful Public Inquiry, we have won an appeal to secure planning permission for a 54-unit residential development on the former Winter Gardens Hotel site in Tregonwell Road. The approved scheme sees the redevelopment of this site which has been vacant for over a decade.

In January 2015 planning permission was granted for 4/5 storey development consisting of 54 units in total – split between 46 residential and 8 holiday apartments – despite objections from Bournemouth Borough Council on loss of tourism accommodation. A subsequent application was submitted in May 2015 which removed the holiday apartment provision and proposed a full residential use for 54 apartments. The Council refused the application having determined this to be contrary to the Council’s tourism policy (CS28) and considered the 8 holiday flats to be viable and their loss to be unacceptable and harmful to Bournemouth’s tourism function.

An appeal against the Council’s decision was lodged in August 2015, which was subsequently upgraded to a Public Inquiry. In September 2016, all evidence was heard in terms of the viability of the holiday apartments and the acceptability of the solely residential use proposal. The Inspector determined that the revised proposal was indeed compliant with the Council’s tourism policy. The loss of the tourism provision was accepted as this was determined to be unviable and not creating any harm to the tourism function in the area. As an extra bonus to the applicant, the Inspector also assessed the affordable housing contribution evidence and agreed to a reduced figure which effectively saved the applicant over £500k.

Following a lengthy process of planning applications, committees and appeals dating back to 2003, the loss of tourism use on this former hotel site has finally been accepted and successfully delivers a striking development of 54 residential apartments in close proximity to Bournemouth town centre, which is a welcomed and long overdue addition to the Tregonwell Road streetscene.

All in all, this large-scale redevelopment has been a successful collaboration between ourselves at Pure Town Planning, ARC Architects, Section 106 Affordable Housing and Sturt & Company, in delivering a comprehensively designed and expertly managed scheme, which has heralded a highly desirable proposal on this vacant site.

As you can see, here at Pure Town Planning, we like nothing more than securing our clients planning approvals. If you are seeking advice on potentially redeveloping tourism accommodation in the Borough and are looking for a firm who will work tirelessly to steer your development through the planning process, then why not give us a call or send us an email to info@puretownplanning.co.uk.