Plan to bulldoze Leicester antiques store for student flats rejected over 'significant and fundamental issues'

plan to bulldoze leicester antiques store for student flats rejected over 'significant and fundamental issues'

Leicester Antiques Warehouse could be a thing of the past if plans for a student block are approved

A bid to demolish a former antiques store in Welford Road to make way for student accommodation has been refused. Leicester City Council’s planning department said there were “significant and fundamental issues” with the proposal.

Some 50 apartments over two blocks were proposed for the site of the former home of the Leicester Antiques Warehouse, which closed its doors in October 2019. A four-storey building would have housed 29 of the flats, and a second, three-storey block at the rear of the site would have taken the remaining 21, a planning application submitted to Leicester City Council revealed. All of the apartments would have been studio flats, the application showed.

There is currently planning approval in place for a similar scheme which would provide 43 student homes across the three-storey and four-storey buildings if implemented. However, applicant Rampard Ltd said it reworked the plans to make it a “car-free” scheme, freeing up space for the seven extra flats and a shared courtyard space for its possible future tenants. By removing the car parking spaces proposed in the original application, the new scheme has also removed the risks related to vehicles reversing onto the main highway, Rampard Ltd added.

However, the city’s planning department was not impressed by the new proposal, labelling it “unacceptable”. Planning officers said they had new concerns over the loss of the store and the subsequent student accommodation.

The new scheme was considered inferior to that previously approved in a number of respects. The proposed building would “appear bulky, tall” and would “dominate the Welford Road streetscene” and “jar with the neighbouring 1930’s semi-detached houses”, they said.

The top floor of the original scheme was angled, reducing its dominance over the street. In the new design the top floor is vertical and described as an “intrusion” by officers.

The windows in the top floor have also been changed from “a wide and dormer-like appearance, which has a softening effect, to narrow ones with a strong vertical emphasis that will appear hard and make the building appear taller than it otherwise would”, they added. The number of windows in Block A has also been reduced.

They also raised concerns over the “unsurveyed” alley running down the side of Block A. This is not shown as being gated in plans.

The planning officer ruling on the case said: “If it were to remain ungated, then members of the public could access the communal area. I am concerned that would be an unacceptable security risk, both for residents of this scheme and for the residents of neighbouring properties.” They called for it to be secured with a gate with access via a key fob lock for residents.

Bins were proposed to be left in front of the building on collection days. This would result in “a very poor appearance that will harm the character and appearance of the area”, the officer said.

They added: “They are also likely to either block the access to the undercroft alley or impinge on the landscaped frontage immediately in front of the ground floor flats with no manoeuvring space for the bins to be collected.”

Lack of communal space for the proposed future residents was also highlighted as an issue. Flats are “relatively small”, the decision report said, and there is “inadequate internal communal space to provide an alternative socialising area”. This is unacceptable, officers concluded.

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