High-rise Newbury Racecourse plans up for approval

Eight storey flats to be built in the 'countryside'

THE LATEST plans for high-rise development at Newbury Racecourse will go before councillors this week.

David Wilson Homes has submitted detailed plans for the appearance, layout, scale and landscaping of up to 712 properties in the eastern wedge of the course.

The plans also include retail and community facilities and a coach park.

The company already has planning permission to build 1,500 homes at the racecourse and many of the homes in the western area are now occupied.

The stretch of racecourse where the homes are to be built is outside the settlement boundary and seven apartment blocks, comprising 356 flats, the highest at eight storeys high and the lowest at four storeys, will dominate the western edge of the application site.

Council planners have recommended that the scheme be approved, but as the application is a major one and has received more than 10 letters of objection, it will be determined by councillors who sit on the influential western area planning committee on Wednesday.

Officers said that while the development will have a fairly dramatic impact on the skyline and the impact on the town’s highway network should not be diminished, these factors were carefully examined back in 2009.

They add that the committee must not decide on the principle of the application, but whether the reserved matters achieve the best compromise.

At the time of the agenda being published, the council’s highways and transport department has raised ‘quite serious safety concerns’ over the road layout within the development.

Lower Farm residents also fear that a lack of parking witnessed in the western area will lead to overflow parking in the rural setting.

And while Thames Valley Police has yet to comment on the amended plans, the force has said that it has ‘fundamental concerns’ that the proposed layout would create ‘a neighbourhood where crime and disorder, and the fear of crime would undermine quality of life and community cohesion’, including routes to the central car park which would be likely to attract criminal or anti-social behaviour.

The plans had included a four-storey apartment building giving way to three-storey town houses, influenced by buildings at Lower Farm Court, at the eastern end of the site.

Following criticism from residents over the height and urban feel of the buildings, David Wilson has now amended the plans, reducing the apartment building to two storeys and moving it further west.

Residents have not been appeased, however.

Marie Lewis said that the new plans bore little resemblance to those used to secure outline permission and that granting permission for the “densely-packed, town-style, three-storey high estate would effectively lift all restrictions on countryside development around Newbury in the future”.

Stephen and Jennifer Wrzesinski said that the amendments were a “minimal improvement to the original inappropriate abysmal design and poorly sited flats”.

They added that the development is in complete contrast with the rural setting and shows a lack of imagination, with street scenes totally urban and car dominated.

To view the application, type 14/03377RESMAJ into West Berkshire Council’s planning portal on its website www.westberks.gov.uk