Bellway Homes is seeking to demolish a 30,000 sq ft office building on a Maidenhead business park and replace it with 91 flats.
The housebuilder has applied to the Royal Borough to demolish vacant Mattel House in the Vanwall Business Park in favour of two apartment blocks of four/five storeys, comprising 29 one-bedroom flats, 54 with two and eight with three. The proposal includes 27 affordable units (30 per cent).
The scheme will have 91 parking spaces, 20 per cent of them with EV charging points.
Pre-application discussions are revealed in the application’s planning statement which was prepared by Savills.
Royal Borough officers pointed to a principle of ‘nil net loss’ of commercial floorspace, which applies to the site, and stated the scheme proposed is considered unacceptable.
However, the building already has Permitted Development approval for conversion to 28 flats and Bellway argued that that approval has established the principle of residential development.
The statement goes on: “The comprehensive redevelopment of the site is considered to provide a much better scheme with significantly more planning benefits, including the delivery of affordable housing and the provision of a more favourable housing mix.”
Officers stated that the permitted conversion to 28 flats can only be considered if it is a viable fallback position. Bellway’s response is that it is viable and the developer will implement that scheme if the 91-home plan is refused.
The site, which backs onto the A404M, continues to be marketed by Bray Fox Smith as a possible refurbishment project called ONE Vanwall.
Image: Google.
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