Portsmouth planning: Second version of plans for Hampshire Car Sales site in Havant Road, Drayton gets go-ahead

Having already won permission for its first proposal in July following a successful appeal to the planning inspectorate, Churchill Retirement Living now has a choice between two schemes for the Hampshire Car Sales site in Havant Road.

Speaking on behalf of the company at the Wednesday meeting of the council's planning committee, a planning agent said the latter had been designed to address concerns raised about the first scheme, before the council's refusal was overturned.

'The applicant responded to the initial refusal by reassessing the design to directly address officer feedback at the time,' he said. 'In making these changes, the scale and massing of the proposals are reduced in comparison with the already approved appeal scheme.'

The second application proposed a building further away from the road while also increasing the size of communal spaces and fitting in one more flat than the 54-home original proposal.

Despite these changes, the application still attracted 21 letters of objection with many raising concerns that it was ‘overdevelopment’ of the site.

However, council planning officers recommended councillors grant planning permission because of the July appeal decision.

‘The overall design of the development proposal, having due regard to the inspector’s comments in allowing the recent appeal on the site, is a material consideration and as such, the design of the proposal is acceptable as a refusal on design grounds would be unlikely to be upheld at appeal,’ a report said.

This position was supported by the committee, despite concerns about the number of similar developments already in Drayton and the lack of any affordable housing provision.

Councillor Hugh Mason said the latest application was better suited to the area and that the design changes made it better for would-be residents of the building.

'I do wonder whether [our policy] on a balanced and mixed community is being pushed to its limit at the present time,' he said. 'That being said, we're between two options: option one is to ignore the plan before us and turn it down on some grounds or we go with this design and I think this is much better.'