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22/01518/FUL Demolition of the existing building and the construction of a self-storage facility (Use Class B8) and flexible office space (Use Class E(g)(i)), together with vehicle parking and landscaping.

Having reviewed the documents supplied with this application, the Society is broadly supportive, but nevertheless made comments regarding some aspects of concern.

First, the flexible “hot-desk” office space type working proposal is interesting, but the assumed demand to support this use may not materialise, leaving the property as a potential “white elephant”.

Secondly, the Society believes it to be important to retain the existing mature and semi-mature trees to the site frontage, including a larger evergreen tree adjacent to the neighbouring site to the north-east, and these trees should therefore be protected during construction and allowed to remain on completion.

The third area of concern is that the re-development applied for may be premature given that this site was part of the former Gas Works and residential cottages associated with that operation. It abuts and indeed inserts/projects into the former Gas Works site layout now generally referred to as the Utilities Site. The Utilities Site has long been regarded as a development opportunity close to the Town Centre being identified some years ago in Plan E, portrayed as a developable site in the recent Masterplan for Epsom exhibition and thought highly likely to be an opportunity site proposal in the upcoming Reg 18 Local Plan consultation.

Finally, even if this previous concern is unfounded, care must be taken to ensure that any approved development does not adversely impact subsequent access to and/or development of the remainder of the whole site.

The Society has asked for the above comments to be taken into account when progressing the application.

See our letter here.