Jon Pender MA(Oxon), DipTP, MRTPI Chartered Town Planner 5 Polwithen Road Penzance Cornwall TR18 4JS Tel.: 07796 270615 Email: [email protected] PLANNING APPLICATION PA14/00811 TRELOYHAN MANOR HOTEL, ST IVES TR26 2AL INTRODUCTION I have been asked to review the arguments put forward to justify approving this application which were set out in the report to Cornwall Council’s West Sub-Area Planning Committee meeting on 2 June 2104, and to summarise my professional opinion on whether planning permission should be granted or refused. THE COMMITTEE REPORT Council officers recommended approval because they saw the proposal as “enabling development” which outweighed the normal planning objections to building houses on this site. I do not consider that they were right to do so. The term “enabling development” is not used in national or local guidance, except briefly in paragraph 140 of the Government’s National Planning Policy Framework (2012) [NPPF] in connection with conserving a “heritage asset” (e.g. a listed building or conservation area). That is not the case here and the officers’ approach therefore seems fundamentally misguided. In support of this view, several planning permissions have been granted for the redevelopment of hotels in St Ives and Carbis Bay for other purposes, while the local tourist economy evidently continues to prosper. There is no explanation why the situation is so different at this hotel that it warrants taking a new approach which is not backed by local or national planning policies, bearing in mind that the site’s current employment is small in relation to the entire tourist economy of the area and that no appreciable increase in employees is anticipated in these proposals. English Heritage has produced detailed guidance on “Enabling development and the conservation of significant places” (2008). This site is a “significant place” within the meaning of the guidance which, in any event, puts forward much more rigorous policy tests than the NPPF. In particular: • Enabling development should not materially harm the value of the place and its setting; • It should secure the long-term future of the place and its continued use for a “sympathetic” purpose; • The amount of enabling development is the minimum necessary to secure the long-term future of the place; and • Most importantly, the public benefit of securing the future of the place by enabling development should decisively outweigh the harm from breaching other policies. Overall, enabling development is a solution of last resort after all others have been tried and failed. Applying these aims to the current application: • The proposal is not to conserve a “heritage asset” or a “significant place”. • The continued use of the hotel is not recognised as being of over-riding public importance in relation to the local holiday industry as a whole. • The amount of the enabling development proposed remains open to question. • It has not been shown that all other possible ways of continuing the hotel have been exhausted; for example, there is no evidence that the site has been marketed to test whether another owner might operate it successfully and avoid the need for any enabling development. • The physical improvements in the recommended Section 106 obligation do not themselves ensure the long-term survival of the hotel use, raising the prospect of more building on the site in the future to fund more capital injections. • Overall, the environmental harm caused to the site and its surroundings is not decisively outweighed by any benefits from building the proposed houses. REASONS OF REFUSAL There are parallels between this proposal and a 2010 one to build a care home and houses on the opposite side of the A3074 at Higher Tregenna Road (PA10/03987). Both are large sites in a predominantly green area which has the important effect of separating St Ives from Carbis Bay. The care home scheme was refused in 2011 because it would intrude into this area, beyond the edge of the town, that is valued for its appearance as well as for its informal recreational use; and because it would harm the setting of a listed building. An appeal against this decision was withdrawn so that it stands as further support for refusing the current application. The same objections and conflicts with local and national planning policies apply to the current application, but with greater force because it affects protected trees growing on the site as well as the immediately adjoining listed building. The continuation of the hotel for an uncertain period does not justify the significant visual intrusion of the enabling development, both in itself and in the precedent more development that approval would be likely to create. REASONS FOR DEFERMENT If the Council is not prepared to refuse the application now, it is suggested that they investigate the following aspects before re-considering its merits: • Have all other possible solutions (including marketing the hotel) been exhausted? • Is the proposed development the minimum necessary to secure the hotel in the long-term? • What mechanism can guarantee the hotel’s use continues in the long-term? • Have the undoubted harmful effects on the site and its surroundings been properly assessed and weighed against the benefits?
Posted on: Tue, 28 Oct 2014 22:01:06 +0000
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