Plans for 800 new homes in Portsmouth could be given the green light by city council next week

Plans to build more than 800 homes in Tipner East have been recommended for approval in a report published ahead of next week’s meeting of the Portsmouth City Council planning committee.

The Vivid scheme was submitted at the end of September, more than two decades after the site was first allocated for new housing – but a decision could now be made as soon as Wednesday, January 18.

Joyce Ferguson, the housing association’s group development director said she was ‘looking forward to the outcome of the planning committee meeting’ and the chance to ‘support the development of much-needed affordable housing in Portsmouth’.

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Decontamination of the site, which has previously hosted a range of industrial uses and the now-demolished greyhound track, was started at the end of October by specialist firm Soilfix and is expected to be finished in November.

Should it be approved, the Vivid development would see 835 homes built, the majority of which will be flats in several 11-storey waterfront blocks. Of these, 250 will be affordable, mostly for renting.

Alongside the housing, Vivid is also proposing to build commercial units, community spaces and access routes to the neighbouring transport interchange and Bellway Homes developments.

But concerns have been raised about about the plans, particularly around its parking arrangements and the potential for issues of congestion.

The planning report describes the development as ‘a significantly reduced car scheme’ with only 194 parking spaces provided across the site.

Council transport planning officer Robert Neave said ‘fundamental issues’ had not been addressed and the some of the assumptions made in the application were ‘optimistic’.

‘The proposed planning submission, in terms of highways matters, has had significant deficiencies that have impacted the ability of the highway authority to fully review the application,’ he said.

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These concerns were echoed in the nine objections to the application, including from Tipner Road resident Lida Weems who said the scale of the development was ‘totally out of keeping’ with the surrounding area.

The proposal forms a major part of the redevelopment of land in Tipner East and is linked to ongoing schemes for a transport interchange to the west and the 200-home Bellway Homes scheme to the south. Revised plans for the Bellway application, which was first submitted in 2021, were filed in December.

Previous attempts to redevelop the land had stalled in recent years despite planning permission being granted for a 500-home Tipner Regeneration Company scheme in 2012.

Vivid took ownership of the land at the end of 2020 in a bid to bring forward a scheme.

And council planning officers have recommended that it be granted planning permission.

‘This is a complex application that, if implemented, would take a significant period of time to complete,’ they said. ‘However, there are significant planning benefit in redeveloping this vacant site.’

The report said these included creating a ‘gateway development’ at the entrance to the city, making ‘effective’ of one of the limited number of available sites and the affordable housing provision.