CHELTENHAM PLANNING - DOWTY HOUSE, CHELTENHAM

The complexities of the site involved:

• A tight timescale
• A need to secure a suitable level of floor space to ensure a viable development
• Heritage constraints
• Tree constraints

Working with officers from Cheltenham Borough Council planning department, and a team of planning consultants including the Stanley Partnership, MHP Arboriculture, Cotswold Transport Planning, Elaine Milton Heritage and Alder King, SF Planning was able to guide the planning application through to a planning permission prior to the implementation of the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) in January 2019. 

SF Planning worked with the local authority to achieve a design that won praise at the Cheltenham Planning Committee.  The minutes recorded: 

“This is a great scheme; the applicant has engaged with officers, the Architects’ Panel and the Civic Society; and the architects have won awards over the years for their schemes. They have worked with the existing building, and the courtyard is a fantastic concept.”

SF Planning set out a vacant building credit case, and also worked with Alder King with regard to the viability of the project as it related to the provision of affordable housing.  MHP Arboriculture was employed to advise on tree matters and successfully negotiated the innovative use of the CAVAT system to justify the removal of a mature lime tree in the public highway.