New retail development approved for Colchester
Four shops and flats have been given planning permission
A new development of shops and flats has been approved for Chesterwell.
The project will sit alongside the new supermarket, with four retail spaces, including a food store, and flats above.
Developers say they have overcome planning challenges to make it happen.
Overcoming constraints
They say that the principle of a neighbourhood centre at this location was established as part of the outline planning approval for an urban extension at this part of Colchester. However, the Neighbourhood Centre development parameters were limited by various planning conditions and subsequent planning submissions.
The key constraint of the extant permission was the limit on commercial floorspace.
With the exception of a food store, which has already been consented, the limits prevent the total amount of commercial floorspace exceeding 1,000 sqm.
The proposed scheme would significantly push the amount of commercial floorspace beyond this limit.
The developers said:
"To justify the development, we put forward a robust planning case that highlighted the key material considerations in favour of the scheme and pointed out that the Council could exceed the limitations in this case and still be within the scope of the extant outline planning consent."
Design
The architects on this project, Stanley Bragg Architects, put forward a landmark design for the proposed building that would also act as a gateway building for the facilities beyond.
The Council generally supported this approach, although there was resistance on some aspects of the proposal, such as the scale, which developers felt were not fully justified in planning or design terms.
They continued:
"Some of the comments from council appeared to seek changes that did not improve the design, but forced a change for the sake of it.
"Working with the architects, we put forward a robust case to defend the scheme and we introduced tweaks that the project team would accept and we highlighted the suggested changes that we believed to be unreasonable that we would not accept.
"The neighbourhood centre location meant that there were also a number of specific design challenges to overcome, particularly with regard to meeting the Council’s standards, for example, private amenity space and parking.
"We worked and advised the project team to ensure that these standards were achieved or could be justified.
"We worked well with the Council’s planning officer to resolve any planning issues and the application was approved."