Click here to see map for location of 24 South Street.

22/00509/RES Removal of Condition 4 (Secure Parking of Bicycles) of planning permission 21/00044/FUL.

Planning permission was granted in May 2021 for the conversion of the 3 storey office building into 2 one-bedroom dwellings on the first and second floor and a commercial unit on the ground floor. Given the absence of any associated car parking, permission was subject to a condition to ensure provision of secure bicycle parking inside the building once converted.

The applicant is now seeking removal of this condition, since the planned layout leaves no space for bicycle storage.

The Society believes that the proposal would undermine an important policy requiring facilitation of sustainable transport, and that, while the applicant states that accommodation of secure cycle parking cannot be provided on the site, this is a matter which is capable of being overcome by appropriate redesign at ground floor level and the applicant must show a desire to pursue this and produce a solution, which in any event should have been thought through and shown at the initial design rather than applying for a waiver at the build stage.

Furthermore, given this is a town centre location with car ownership of the prospective flat occupiers unlikely, the facility for ground floor cycle parking is very important, especially in the light of recent increases in energy and fuel prices and in the absence of any change of policy justifying a waiver or slackening of an important listed condition within 12 months of permission being granted.

Finally, the Society is concerned that, if allowed, permission granted to waive/omit cycle parking policy could set a precedent in other locations.

For all these reasons, the society has requested refusal of the application.

See our letter here.