Borough of Poole: Pure Town Planning are delighted to announce that we have recently secured a very valuable planning permission for 35 apartments in the prestigious area of Lilliput, near Sandbanks in Poole. The development proposed the replacement of 4 chalet bungalows with 4 blocks of 3 storey apartments (3 blocks of 9 apartments, and 1 block of 8 housing a mixture of 2, 3 & 4 bedroom units, with penthouses exceeding 2000 sq.ft!).
Pure Town Planning were involved from the outset undertaking pre-application discussions with the Borough of Poole planning officers and then liaising with the architects Anders Roberts, who designed these beautiful bespoke apartment buildings, to work up the scheme ready for submission. The proposed apartments themselves were generously designed in terms of space ranging between 2-4 bedrooms and the majority of the flats had either a terrace or small balcony taking advantage of the spectacular views over the adjacent golf course. Externally Anders Roberts did a cracking job with the design of the buildings; the front two buildings were traditional in style (to match the prevailing character of the street) with pitched roofs, rendered gables and iconic turret features whereas the rear two buildings (as they were more hidden from view) were flat roofed, sleek, contemporary buildings with large areas of fenestration and finished in sharp white render and stone cladding.
We prepared a comprehensive Design, Access and Planning statement justifying every aspect of the proposal in detail. The key was firstly demonstrating to the planners that the character of this section of Lilliput Road had altered significantly over the past few years as a result of new, recently constructed, high quality apartment buildings and consented schemes in the vicinity. Once we had persuaded them that the principle of flatted development on the four plots was acceptable we then set about justifying why the number of units, the proposed new access and layout, the scale of the buildings and the appearance would all constitute a well thought out and considered scheme which would sit comfortably with the surrounding environment. Now I’d like to tell you that this part was straightforward… however the truth is that Matt had to negotiate like he’d never negotiated before! We attended numerous meetings at the Council with the planners, meetings on site with the tree officer, dozens of meetings at the architects and client’s offices and countless emails and phone calls backwards and forwards to the design team and different departments of the Council… but it was all worth it… by revision number 2675 of the plans (not really but it felt like it!) we had made it… this constant negotiation and tweaking of the plans had paid off and we had a scheme which had a recommendation to approve by the planning officer.
But that wasn’t the end! Given the number of objections from neighbouring residents and the fact that a Ward Councillor had “called in” the application, it meant that the application had to be determined at Planning Committee. So despite all our hard work to convince the planning officer, his team leader, the tree officer, the highways officer and the urban design officer that the scheme was acceptable we now had to convince the members of the planning committee as well! Following a site visit with the members in the morning Matt presented a deputation to the Planning Board justifying why the application should be approved and why it would not be harmful to the character of the area as argued by the Ward Councillor and neighbours. It was put to the vote and the development was overwhelmingly approved by the Members.
If you are working on a large residential development and are looking for a firm who will work tirelessly to steer your development through the planning process then contact Matt, Dan or Neil in confidence on 01202 585524 or email us at info@puretownplanning.co.uk for a free no obligation planning consultation.