Poole Police Station conversion planning consultants Poole
Well this development will certainly look “arresting”… Image courtesy of Anders Roberts Cheer

Borough of Poole: Pure Town Planning are proud to announce that we have just “locked up” an outline planning permission for the construction of an additional storey of accommodation, conversion of the building into residential apartments and a new 4 storey rear extension with associated access and parking to form a total of 52 units at the Former Poole Police Station site.

The former Police Headquarters site lies within the Civic Centre Gyratory between the Magistrates Court and the Borough of Poole Civic Centre offices. Opposite the building to the south west is Poole Park. The original part of the application building and the Civic Centre building lie within the Poole Park Conservation Area. The Civic Centre, Law Courts and Poole Park Pavilion are all Locally Listed Buildings so there were a number of constraints on the “beat” which needed to be “forensically” scrutinised when the “officer” was assessing the “evidence”.

As some of our more avid followers may remember we actually secured planning permission back in February’s Committee earlier this year for the construction of an additional storey of accommodation and conversion of the building into 42 residential apartments on this site. The key changes between this current scheme and that of the approved were:

  • Creation of a 4 storey extension at the rear of the building which will sit over part of the car park enabling an additional ten units
  • Alterations to the inward facing external appearance of the building on the elevations overlooking the car park
  • An additional 6 car parking spaces to serve the development

There were no letters of objection from any of the “usual suspects”. Historic England and the Twentieth Century Society initially objected to the height of the rear extension on the scheme as originally submitted – it was 5 storeys giving 57 units. They felt that because the fifth storey rose above the existing building it would have a negative impact on the views from Poole Park. When we spoke with the applicants they felt it was a “fair cop” and so we reduced the scale of the building and removed the additional storey, so that the extended part of the building could now no longer be viewed from Poole Park, thus preserving the character and appearance of the Conservation Area. There were no objections from any of the Council’s internal consultees. The return to use of this valuable building was strongly supported by all.

When the application went past its target date to enable the Section 106 agreement to be resolved, Matt feared that he was in for a “long stretch”. However the delay was not too bad and given that the Council had an interest in the land the application had to be determined at Planning Committee in any case. Matt presented a deputation to the Planning Board and “took no prisoners” when justifying why the application should be approved and why it would not be harmful to the character of the area. It was put to the vote and the development was overwhelmingly approved by the Members of the “jury”, sorry the Committee.

It really is “criminal” how many approvals we are securing at the moment. 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 us in confidence on 01202 585524 or email us at info@puretownplanning.co.uk for a free no obligation planning consultation. Right that’s it move along, nothing to see here…