Samas Roneo - What next ?

Just days before the planning application for the Samas Roneo (HPK/2011/0452) site and adjoining field, the application has been withdrawn by the applicants, and as such will no longer be considered by the development control committee.

What this means for the future of the site is unknown at current, it could be that applicants have withdrawn the application to address the shortcomings around that left officers recommending refusal or it could be that there is another plan forthcoming for the site, only time will tell.

Samas Roneo – Good news / bad news ?

One of the items up for discussion and decision at the development control meeting of the 7^th November is the recent application by BNP Paribas / Astor Property Group with regards to the Samas Roneo site and adjacent field.

The application which is for 93 properties, provoked to a certain extent the usual response to any sort of building / planning application, along the lines of not in my back yard, along with a reasonable number of valid concerns around the amount of additional traffic that the proposal would bring with the likely hood of a minimum of 90 additional cars on the road.

There were however some elements of support for the development, mainly around the idea of removing the factory from existence, but also in terms of support to one of the local schools who currently low in numbers quite likes the idea of a potential additional 90+ homes with kids.

Interestingly despite the comments above there have as detailed in the report only being 5 letters of objection to the proposals (so far) with those objections highlighting concerns around traffic impact, employment land availability, housing supply and the environmental impact of development.

That said however, the recommendation from the planning officers is for refusal, which in part gets the good news, bad news commentary, with I suppose it been good news to those not wanting developments / having traffic concerns etc but bad news to those that wanted the former Samas Roneo warehouse removing.

In terms of the refusal recommendation, the grounds it’s recommended for refusal on are, around a lack of affordable housing being offered by the developer, along with a failure to make adequate arrangements for traffic access to the site of the proposed Gamesley Station.

The report will now go for discussion and decision at the next meeting of development control, which may or may not back the recommendation of the officers.

You can read the report yourself by clicking here, but I would suspect that this won’t be the last we will hear on the proposal, with additional information on changes to the site layout, and amount of affordable housing been offered, still being in a state of flux or at least they were at the time of the report been written.

Development Control - Glossop Special

The next meeting of the council's development control committee, next Monday (7th November) could almost be billed as a Glossopdale special given that out of the 5 applications for consideration 4 are from Glossopdale.

The first is for the development at the former Samas Roneo site (and we will come back to that in more detail shortly), the second for a residential development on the site of the former bus depot at York Street in Old Glossop, followed by advertising and listed building consent for signage at the Gatehouse in Glossop, and finally the application to keep portacabins at All Saints School in Old Glossop.

Two of applications are recommended for approval, and two are marked with a recommendation for refusal, but as to whether they will end up in line with the officer recommendation, you'll have to wait till next Monday to find out.

HPK/2011/0452

A display board from the recent consultation

The letters and number above, or at least what it represents will no doubt become a popular topic of conversation amongst locals in the Gamesley area over the next few months.

The reason for this is that the letters and number will be the reference for the planning application by BNP Paribas for land on Glossop Road including the former Samas Roneo Warehouse.

The details of the application (ie how many houses etc) are not yet known as the application is currently awaiting validation / processing - however from the site / location address for the application it would seem to indicate that the application will include the field next to, as well as the former Samas Roneo Warehouse.

Further details will be advised, as and when they are available.

Form or function ?

I don't often comment on planning issues, as they tend not to arise too often with the ward, but one from Whaley Bridge that is due to go before the next planning committee has caught my eye and not necessarily in a good way.

The application in question is HPK/2010/0289 with regards to the replacement of railway bridge 42, (as pictured above from Google Maps / Street view) which is coming before the council due to the structure being a listed building.

The report for the development control meeting is recommending from officers to refuse the bridge as it fails to comply with the local plan aims "of conserving heritage assests" unless there is substantial public benefits gained by it's removal, well in my view (and this is most likely my view alone) whilst it's a nice bridge, it's not one of a kind, and in the great scheme of things this is a bridge that is part of a current operational railway line and as such the railway should have the flexibility to replace it to meet the needs of the line.

Now if it was a station ie more in the centre of a town, or one of the viaducts locally, that might be another matter, but in this case it should be function first rather than form. 

Development Control – Local applications

Dinting Viaduct,
originally uploaded by Pimlico Badger.

Last night’s development control meeting featured a number of application from the local area, some possible welcome, others not so.

Starting off with the possible welcome or less contention, there was an application from Glossop Caravans to replace the building lost in last December’s fire, this was approved by the committee.

This was followed by the renewal of a previously approved application from JD Williams in Hadfield for the erection of a high bay warehouse, to replace existing buildings, which was again approved.

Also up for discussion and approved by the committee was an application for the replacement of the Hadfield Clinic on Wesley Street in Hadfield.

In the less welcome category (at least by some local residents) was an application for part of the former Wild and Hallam showroom at Brookfield. The application was to convert part of the site to a trailer fabrication workshop with showroom and sale area, with a hand car wash on the forecourt.

Whilst most application that look at providing jobs are welcome, in this case there has being a number of complaints from local residents mainly around the operation of the car wash, on pollution and advertising concerns, there were however some locals supporting the application welcoming the reuse of the site. In the end after discussion it was approved, with some additional conditions being requested around ‘fencing’ on the site to reduce some of the ‘pollution’ issues.

Last up in this brief resume of applications that were discussed by last nights development control committee was an application over the parking site next to Dinting Station. This application was for conversation of the site from its current parking use, to 24 units of affordable housing.

Now to some locals (as flagged here, here and here) this latest application to convert the site to something else is no surprise, with there being a number of previous suggestions flagged up in the local papers, since it’s conversation to a car park a number of year’s ago, and by implication of the conversation the area changed from being a no / low chance of building green field site to a much more likely for development brownfield site.

The application was recommended for refusal by officers at the council, for a variety of reasons including loss of open countryside, poor design and whilst the application was for affordable housing which would be welcome, there are other better sites within the existing boundaries of Hadfield and Glossop that should be considered first.

The application was considered by the development control committee most of whom will have received additional details from the developers for the site that included such gems as an infrequent Sunday service on the 397 – infrequent because it doesn’t run on a Sunday ! However in the end the development control committee agreed with the officer’s recommendation and refused the application.

Now whilst the application was refused yesterday I don’t expect that will be the end of things with this site and it will be interesting to see what comes next as in the past we've had golf ranges, industrial use, car boot sales and I seem to recall a crematorium at some point.

Carpenters Approved

Welcome news (in my view anyway) from the development control committee this evening, with the news that the officer’s recommendation for Carpenters has been overturned and planning permission has been granted.

The application is for Carpenters to extend the site at Dinting Lodge by 12,160 square meters, which they advise will create an additional 50-70 jobs, bringing the total workforce at the Dinting Lodge site to over 200, with the majority of those extra post’s been employed from the local area according to documentation submitted with the application.

Now whilst I can understand the 12 objections to the application and the reasons behind the officer’s recommendation to reject the application, in the current financial climate any move which both secures additional jobs as well as safeguarding the long term future of the site must be (and has been tonight) given due consideration.