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From the Newsletter- April 2005 |
Planning Applications
The most significant planning issue arising in recent months was the proposed demolition of McArthur's Warehouse on Spike Island. Members may remember that planning applications to demolish the warehouse and build three new blocks of apartments on this site immediately behind the ss Great Britain were the subject of an appeal to the Secretary of State in January 2002. The outcome was a refusal of permission for the building of the apartments on the general grounds that they were too dominant and out of scale with their surroundings and that public views of the historic and internationally significant ss Great Britain would be harmed. An earlier permission to demolish the warehouse already existed.
A further application for a scaled down new-build scheme was put in by the developers, Quada, and the Development Control Central Committee ie. the Planning Committee granted this in January 2004 although planning officers had recommended deferral in order that full consideration could be given to the principle of demolition, and because English Heritage were preparing a report on the case for the conversion of the warehouse.
This granting of permission for the scaled-down application was then ‘called in’ again by the Secretary of State - an unusua1 event indeed. This ‘call in’ was arranged for February 2005 and English Heritage put in evidence that retention and conversion of the warehouse was viable.
However, in December 2004 English Heritage, having looked more closely at the condition of the warehouse where there had been some deterioration, decided to withdraw their objections to demolition and to the new buildings. In consequence the Secretary of State decided to cancel the public inquiry. This left the Society high and dry but it was not convinced by the position of English Heritage and with much burning of midnight oil, particularly by our architectural adviser Stephen Macfarlane, produced what we felt was a powerful case for the Development Control Committee looking again at the decision it had made in January 2004.
This it eventually did on 16th March 2005 when the Society and others put forward arguments for the retention and conversion of the warehouse and for the planning permission of January 2004, which had not been finally signed, to be changed. There was lengthy debate amongst members of the committee which, when put to the vote, resulted in five councillors for retention and five against. A casting vote was then made by the Chairman, Cllr Richard Eddy, to endorse the original decision to approve both the demolition and the new-build proposals, and a very long saga came, for the Society, to a most unsatisfactory end.
There have, of course, been other planning issues during the last three months but McArthur's Warehouse has been of’ such importance and so time and resource consuming that I felt it right to devote my allotted space to it.
Gordon Tucker
Convenor, Planning Applications Group
0117 973 2040
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