Plans to replace one of Milton Keynes’ most iconic structures with 487 Build-to-Rent flats have been thrown out and the applicant told it had failed to listen to advice.
Galliard Holdings’ proposals to redevelop the vacant former entertainment complex, The Point, along with a neighbouring cinema, and replace them with four blocks of flats of up to 21 storeys were unanimously refused by Milton Keynes City Council’s planning committee on July 18.
Reasons for refusal included:
- The total loss of The Point, a non-designated heritage asset of high heritage significance.
- Less than substantial impact on the setting of the Grade II listed Shopping Building.
- Lack of affordable housing and infrastructure contributions.
- Privacy of residents, visual impact and density.
In negotiations, Galliard had offered no affordable units but a contribution of £13.07 million to cover all affordable housing and other s106 contributions.
A revised offer of just £2.51m was made to cover s106 contributions, along with a further, £1m for affordable housing. Both offers were rejected.
Cllr Paul Trendall said the developer was ‘not listening and not paying attention’.
He went on: “The thing they have most not paid attention to is the sign that you see when you come off the motorway that says ‘Milton Keynes’ because if anybody thinks that this planning committee will ever give planning permission to something which and I quote (from the agenda) ‘fails to make a justified contribution to affordable housing’, they should save their fuel and not bother driving here because we should never ever give consent to anything like that.
“If we’re going to build, in the city centre, high rise buildings – and we probably are because that would be the best place to put them and we need housing – then we must build sufficient affordable and socially priced units. This doesn’t do it.”
Image: The Point in Milton Keynes – Soon to be demolished by Richard Humphrey, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.
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