PLANNING STATEMENT Great Houghton Working Mens Club, High Street, Great Houghton, Barnsley. S72 0AB Rev A - 09/11/15 We present this application, and believe we have addressed the concerns in the previous application for this development with significant changes. Previous Planning submission (2015/0894) had the support of Barnsley Planning Office, but was refused at Planning Committee. Reason 1 In the opinion of the Local Planning Authority, the proposed conversion to 8 bedsits of a building which immediately adjoins a Working Mens Club is considered unacceptable; and that any future occupiers would suffer from a lack of private amenity through the disturbance and noise generated by the adjoining use and its associated activity. In addition, the outlook from the proposed bedsits on the Western side of the building is impacting on the amenity of potential occupiers as well as on the amenities of these near neighbours through noise and disturbance. The proposal is therefore considered contrary to the core principles of the NPPF, which seeks to achieve a good standard of amenity for all existing and future occupiers of land and buildings, and policies CSP40 and CSP29 of the Core Strategy. This amended application will help dramatically increase the club/site viability, by greatly reducing costs such as building rates that in turn cuts Sky business. Therefore this application will help secure a community asset, which is the club, and planning policy encourages this. Concerns have been raised about Highways and parking. In Great Houghton Village, this application will certainly help by not adding to the problem, and are a positive for this application, although the current frequency use of the concert room has been dwindled down in anticipation for this application, its current use is D2 and has a capacity of 300, which can be used 24/7 and if applications are unsuccessful will have to be used at a great frequency to try and make it viable, according to Barnsley LDF SDP parking policy for that use, 50 car parking spaces are required, which the proposed development C4 just 3 are required, This proposal takes the danger of 300 people and their cars also using the infrastructure. Concerns and the original refusal reason, about future residence and neighbouring ones concerning noise. A professional sound survey on the exact same building design is attached to this Planning Application. It was done and accepted for the Middlecliff development recently. This proposed development is virtually the same in design, so the attached noise assessment should be considered and adopted to mitigate against any noise issues arising with this planning application. I quote: On this basis, noise is not considered a constraint to the proposed residential development. Concerns about noise for neighbouring properties. The proposed development should be looked upon as a positive for this concern. Again, although the concert room has been dwindled down in anticipation of this application, it is, and can be used 24/7 for D2 use, allowing live music, discos for around 300 people consuming alcohol, and due to smoking laws, exiting and entering the building allowing sound to travel out; and also generating their own noise. Therefore, the current use of the building is by far the worse than the proposed. There is a quote on the front page of the Barnsley Chronicle by a local resident - Mr William Platt, who lives opposite the concert room on Woodlands Lane - ' the flat windows would overlook his property and be ''detrimental to privacy'' and has also said he had already put in complaints about noise before at the club. This was said at the original hearing and it was dismissed by a resident , that complaints were made about the concert room noise. The sound survey shows noise can be mitigated from a club joining residential, so it is reasonable to assume that it is achievable from properties that are detached. Improvements made to overcome Neighbour noise concerns. 1. - In addition to the external cavity wall that is already adequate for noise reduction, an additional lining to the external wall will be added. This will be a Sinet sound system ASP003 which comprises of acoustic stud work, 2 layers of sound board, and 50mm of acoustic insulation, that will deliver an additional 49db of sound insulation. This wall system will be used, and is also acceptable as internal dividing walls between the apartments as a sound separation. 2. - All windows shall be triple glazed. 3. - Expensive noise limiters will be installed to rooms along the West side and will be connected to the mains electric supply in each room. The limiters are used in pubs that have high noise levels and are set to a noise level as agreed with Environmental Health. These devices cut power from the room sockets for a set period of time, if the set db level is reached. This will protect neighbouring properties from high levels of sound emitting from devices when windows are open. 3. - The Fire door facing the West side will be alarmed and have a glass bolt so it can only be used in an emergency. I believe these measures overcome concerns initially raised regarding noise nuisance to neighbours, and the sound report addresses concerns for future occupants in the proposed development. In the previous hearing and in the Planning Officer's report, comments and concerns were mentioned on the cramped nature of the design, even though the Planning Officer said they were acceptable. We disagree because, using National Standards which Barnsley Planning also use for HMOs, the proposed application could quite easily accommodate twice as many residents/rooms in the space available, and would not affect the merits of this proposal. The minimum requirement for a HMO room with communal area is 6.5 m2; the rooms in this proposal are nearly 3 times the minimum requirement at 20 m2. All rooms will have kitchen areas and en-suites. Concerns were raised about fire safety. This is not a Planning issue, plus the fire officer had no concerns and it is part of Building Regulations. However, we would like to address it at this stage. This development has a lot better fire protection than traditional dwellings. Each room will have 30 minutes fire protection and each room has emergency lighting. Each room also has a mains wired stand alone smoke detector and are connected to a fire alarm with a heat detector and rooms are equipped with a fire blanket. The development has 2 ways of exit on the same floor via fire doors. This development will have far superior fire protection for future residents than that offered in traditional housing in the surrounding area. Concerns and part of refusal were raised regarding windows outlook for future tenants and privacy for neighbours. Although boundary conditions overcome privacy concerns for neighbours, it was thought window design would be problematic for both tenants and neigbours alike along the Western side. Also, the door from the communal room would be an issue if used on a regular basis. We have made improvements to overcome this. 1 - Windows have been modified so as the lower part of the glazing up to a height of 1.7m from finished floor level, will be obscure to give privacy to neighbours. 2 - The fire door facing the West side will be alarmed so can only be used in an emergency. 3 - Additional velox type windows with remote blind control will be added to the rooms along the Western side. This will give additional natural light without effecting overlooking issues. Concerns were raised if we were renting or selling the rooms. This is not a Planning issue and we believe that there was/is clearly Prejudice against future residents that neighbours and some councilors think will occupy the rooms, and is more to the reason why Planning Committee have not followed Planning Policy and Planning Office guidance. To answer the question anyway, the rooms will be rented by an accredited estate agent that manages them very well. Neighbours can be assured that any tenants causing a nuisance, will be a problem to other tenants before becoming a problem to neighbours, and will be dealt with accordingly. Examples of similar development in the Borough. We have recently developed the site at Middlecliff in a similar way to this proposed at Great Houghton. Planning permission was sought after and Granted. There is also a development at Thurnscoe, where the Council built social housing as close as 5 metres away from the club (the same as in this proposed development) and there were no concerns, and a sound report was not required. Thurnscoe Conservative Club is another example where social housing have been built close to the club. There appears to be some inconsistencies regarding these types of developments. Summary The address is close to Great Houghton Centre, and is not situated within a conservation area. The site is not situated within a flood risk area. We have taken into account that the site lies within what is mainly a residential area, and so a House of Multiple Occupation should be developed rather than anything Commercial. We believe the extra measures we are willing to undertake which will involve additional cost, will easily overcome the original refusal reasons and neighbours concerns for this development. Although this new application has all of these new measures added to overcome issues, we believe that the appeal that has been lodged for the previous application will be successful in its original design. We believe the reasons for refusal were very weak, and the sound survey was ignored by Councilors which would have overcome 4/5 of the refusal reasons.