Student block in Portsmouth on Wingfield House car park gets planning permission - despite fears that there isn't enough demand

Planning permission for the redevelopment of the former Wingfield House car park was granted by the council's planning committee on Wednesday this week in line with a report which said it would be a 'positive contribution' to Staunton Street.

Councillors discussed recent applications by Collegiate for the conversion of student rooms in two of its blocks, including Crown Place, into regular housing but said they were unable to refuse the Meadway Management Limited scheme.

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Committee member, and the cabinet member for housing, councillor Darren Sanders had put forward a proposal to reject it but was not supported by other councillors.

‘We have two applications where a student accommodation developer is asking this council to vary their applications because they simply cannot keep it as student accommodation and stay viable,’ he said. ‘If developers are coming back to us and saying “ we can't cope with this” because the market is not there it is something we should be proactive about trying to tackle and should be looking at in all applications.’

He also raised concerns raised by people living nearby to the site who warned the development would exacerbate issues of anti-social behaviour in the area.

However, councillors said the council would be unable to defend refusal should it be appealed through the planning inspectorate.

‘I have a real worry about it but I'm not sure what we, as a planning committee, can do about it,' councillor Gerald Vernon-Jackson said. ‘I think we have to be blind to the market and it is there problem not ours and I think it would be hard to justify refusal on those grounds at appeal.’

He added: ‘There’s clearly an issue with people building student accommodation in the city which they cannot let out and we do need to take this up within the planning department.’

He also cited examples of the council buying student accommodation from developers who had ‘struggled’ to fill them.