Town centre boarding house conversion approved despite concerns over accommodation plans
A cluster of buildings which were previously used as boarding accommodation for a county school are set to be converted into rental accommodation.
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Telford & Wrekin Council has approved proposals to convert the Old Post Office on Newport High Street into two homes, each containing five bedrooms and a new commercial unit.
Newport and District Civic Society objected to the plans after raising fears that ‘all the properties’ formerly used as boarding houses by Haberdasher Adams are being converted into living accommodation for Harper Adams University students.
They argued that the centre of Newport ‘needs apartments’ and highlighted that students are away during parts of the year.
“This is not the type of part-time/short period occupation that Telford & Wrekin Council advocate for permanent residents in the centre of town to bring life back into the centre of town all year round,” the group said.
The approval of the Old Post Office building followed the council previously given the green light for similar developments at the adjacent Roddam House and Beaumaris House buildings.
Newport Town Council ‘welcomed’ the proposal to improve the fabric of the historic Old Post Office building and supported the opening a new commercial unit. However, they raised ‘concerns’ about the impact on parking issues in the town if a home of multiple occupation with no new parking is approved.
Despite the concerns raised a council planning officer concluded that there were ‘no technical reasons to refuse the application’ and gave it the green light.
The council’s built heritage conservation specialists said that the plans are ‘must welcome in principle, and broadly considered to be an appropriate and sustainable re-use of a heritage asset’.
“It is considered that the proposed layouts have generally been carefully considered to avoid harm to the historic fabric,” the heritage specialist said.
However, they added that the plan does include ‘harming the building’s character’ to create a new internal doorway into a planned ground floor kitchen.
“This would entail the unavoidable creation of an opening in the historic fabric, causing harm to the building’s character,” the specialist added.
“However, the harm here would be at the lower end of the less-than-substantial scale and is considered to be outweighed by the public benefits of providing rental accommodation and bringing the building back into sustainable use.”
The council’s highways specialists raised no objection to the development despite no parking being proposed as part of the application.
They commented that residents of the properties would have to rely solely on sustainable transport modes and the public car parking within Newport.
The specialists stated that the proposals ‘would not have any detrimental effect to the adopted highway in the vicinity of the site’.
They concluded that there are no technical highways reasons to refuse the application.
