Business park plan takes off at runway
Every Monday the will provide a round-up of some of the more significant planning applications submitted and ruled upon in the region. New planning applications will have their case-reference number shown - full details of the application can be seen on t
MAJOR plans to close one of Gloucestershire Airport’s runways and build a new business park have been recommended for approval.
Airport bosses want to close the north-south runway at the top end of it and create a new business park called Cheltenham Gloucester Exchange.
The airport’s proposals would see the business park constructed as well as a new access road off the B4063, according to a council document.
Officers at Tewkesbury Borough Council have recommended the authority’s planning committee give the plans the go-ahead in a meeting tomorrow.
Some of the helicopter operators at Gloucestershire Airport have objected to the plans, highlighting concerns about safety and said a reduction in the grass area would “seriously affect” their ability to operate.
Gloucestershire Airport Limited said it has “undertaken due diligence on all the regulatory requirements” and are in discussions with the tenants.
The future of Hamilton House in Bristol remains uncertain following a recent appeal decision.
The owners of the iconic community building in Stokes Croft have been trying for years to get planning permission to turn it into flats.
Now Connolly and Callaghan (C&C) is reviewing its options after a government planning inspector upheld four and dismissed three of their appeals against refusal by Bristol City Council.
The seven appeals related to seven applications for prior approval to turn parts of the building into flats under permitted development rights.
Planning inspector David Murray agreed with the council’s refusal in three cases, on the grounds there was not enough evidence to establish “without ambiguity” that the units were being used as offices, a requirement of the rights. But he upheld C&C’s appeals in four cases, concluding the units were in office use.
A spokesperson for C&C said: “The planning appeal decisions have clarified some legal aspects for both us and the local authority.”
Bristol City Council’s war on the rise of bedsits has suffered an early blow after a planning inspector overturned a decision to reject student housing.
A new policy, approved by cabinet in November, was intended to ban family homes being converted into houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) in neighbourhoods where there were already 10 per cent or more.
Campaigners hailed it as a victory against the expansion of universities and increase in student shared properties across the city, which many fear is breaking up communities and pushing locals away. But in the first serious test of the new rules, laid out in a supplementary planning document (SPD), which also prevents family homes being “sandwiched” between bedsits, a government inspector has delivered a setback.
The Planning Inspectorate upheld an appeal by a developer against the council’s decision to refuse permission for a six-bedroom HMO behind 85 Whiteladies Road in Clifton Down.
A Victorian school which has lain empty in Swindon for years will be turned into flats.
Swindon Borough Council has agreed to sell the site and building in Clays Close in Upper Stratton to its own housing development company for £75,000.
The idea is that the company will raise finance for turning the building, which was last used as Stratton Education Centre, and build 12 houses on the site and turn the old school buildings into seven flats. They will be sold on the open market and once the financing has been repaid, the borough council will pocket the profits.
Avonmouth Industrial Estates Ltd, which is owned by Canadian real estate giant Epta, has submitted a screening option to demolish the former AstraZeneca works at Hallen, near Avonmouth.
The 40-hectare site, which was initially owned by ICI, was a giant pharmaceutical manufacturing site from 1969 to 2019. It is thought that antiseptic cream Savlon was named after the Avlon works.
It was most recently owned by Avara Pharmaceuticals but closed in 2019.
The Western Daily Press reported last month that the contents of the site are being auctioned this week.
Epta have not yet publicly discussed its plans for the site if it is given the go ahead by South Gloucestershire Council to demolish the works. (P21/008/ SCR)
Bath and North East Somerset Council has applied for permission to redevelop and consolidate the existing depot site and adjacent land at the Ministry Of Defence Storage And Distribution Centre, Pixash Lane, Keynsham into a new re-use and recycling centre. It will also have associated staff parking, a material recovery facility, a waste transfer station, a vehicle fleet storage and maintenance site’ an MOT centre, BANES Parks and Grounds maintenance storage, BANES Highways winter service and salt store and ancillary offices. It is part of the author
every ticket ity’s wider plans to provide recycling and waste solutions for the district over the next 40 years. (21/00435/EREG03)
In anticipation of continued growth in the number of people driving electric cars Motor Fuel Group has applied to Bristol City Council for approval of conditions to remove an existing car wash and plant room and to install six new electric vehicle chargers with canopy and associated infrastructure at its petrol filling station at 220 - 226 York Road, Bedminster. (21/00709/COND)