A Howell Road garage has been put up for sale just seven days after a planning inspector overturned a city council decision to refuse planning permission for redevelopment of the site as a 26-bed student accommodation block.
The guide price for the 0.13 acre site in St James, where outline permission for an apparently identical block of nine flats has also been approved, is £675,000. It is described as a “prime investment location” close to the university’s Streatham campus.
In response to councillors’ criticism of his approach at the planning committee meeting that granted permission for the flats last September, developer Sam Williams said he thought it was “a bit disingenuous to say I’m going to spin in and spin out and take my profit”.
When asked to confirm whether his application for permission to build the flats was in good faith he said “we’ll build the residential scheme” only if the appeal against the student block refusal failed, adding that the student accommodation block was “what we want to build”.
Howell Road garage student block illustrative elevation.
Source: Exeter City Council.
The application to redevelop the garage site for student accommodation prompted significant local opposition when it was submitted two years ago.
It was refused in March last year on community balance grounds, as well over half the residential property in St James is already occupied by students.
The planning inspector’s decision to overturn the refusal concluded that the application complied with the St James Neighbourhood Plan, which aims to improve the social balance of this part of the city by restricting new student accommodation development.
Exeter St James Community Trust described the decision as “not only extremely disappointing, but baffling”.
The appeal decision suggests that the plan’s definition of “community balance” – a diverse population which includes people at all stages of their lives and which is not dominated by a single group – is less relevant in this case as the applicable policy did not explicitly mention purpose built student accommodation.
It also says that the area around the Howell Road garage “is not predominantly characterised by intact streets of traditional residential development” because the garage itself is not residential and there is a brick wall opposite and another along the road.
