St John’s College: Plans for 212 homes at former college site in Portsmouth are approved despite objections
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Southsea Village Limited’s planning application for a large residential development has been approved by Portsmouth City Council’s planning committee. The development will boast 49 one-bed flats, 138 two-bed, 24 three-bed and one four-bed across the grounds of the former independent school which closed in the summer of 2022 due to falling student numbers.
The plans received more than 100 objections from local residents including James Kirby who raised concerns to the committee relating to overlooking, loss of light and “gross visual intrusion”. He added that the Simon Wings, both east and west, should be reduced from three storeys to two to avoid overlooking his home – this would result in the loss of eight apartments.
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Hide AdA spokesperson for the Portsmouth Society described the plans as out of scale and character of the area, which is part of the Owen’s Southsea Conservation Area (OSCA). “The council established the OSCA in recognition of its national importance,” they said. “What is presented here is bland and characterless, typical of generic housing development that can be found anywhere. The proposals for the cell block on Grove Road are particularly bad – it’s ugly and not good enough.”
Representing the developer, Nicolas Roach, chairman of the Nicolas James group, defended the proposal by stressing the importance of reusing the empty buildings. He said: “You need to be aware that the holding costs of this site are significant, we are facing weekly break-ins, we’ve had a number of fires and we’re not going to be able to save all the buildings at St John’s if this carries on. It is imperative that we get this school into an alternative use and quickly, it’s been a real struggle.”
The development will provide a total of 105 parking spaces, which equates to 0.5 spaces per home. All spaces will provide EV charging points together with 375 cycle parking spaces and 38 short-stay cycle spaces.
The plans and the listed building consent were approved with six votes in favour and two abstentions.