“Brighton and Hove City Council’s Planning Committee voted six to one in favour of Timothy Jennings’s plans to build six one-bedroom homes on the plot near Southern Cross.
The site is next to St Nicolas (Church of England) Primary School in Locks Hill and close to Brackenbury Primary School.
The land was once the driveway for a villa known as Greenways, which was demolished and replaced by a block of flats with the same name in the 1970s.
South Portslade Labour councillor Les Hamilton spoke against the application when the Planning Committee met on Wednesday (4 May).
He said: “These buildings – referred to as sheds by some residents – will be detrimental to the Portslade Conservation Area.
“The narrow nature of the site rules out the use of vehicle access. There is no vehicle access to these properties, just cycle and pedestrian access. How the construction will be carried out is unclear.”
Councillor Hamilton was concerned about how emergency vehicles would reach the properties from Locks Hill.
Mr Jennings’s agent, Joseph Pearson, of Lewis and Co Planning, said that the site was unconventional but the designs were in keeping with the natural features.
He said: “The new homes are semi-detached dwellings built to a high standard. They will be produced off-site and assembled on site so it’s going to be a much quicker and less disruptive construction process for neighbours.”
Labour councillor Daniel Yates was enthusiastic about the project and hoped to see more developments like it in other parts of the city.
He said: “I love it. I think this is an incredibly innovative set of proposals. We have to start changing the narrative around development in this city.
“This starts to show, even in the most difficult and constrained sites, we can still find ways to deliver appropriate accommodation.”
Here is the link to the original article below:
https://www.brightonandhovenews.org/2022/05/06/planners-give-verdict-on-driveway-homes/
6 Houses at Portslade
We first began working with our client in 2011 after he acquired a long, narrow site at auction.
A standard planning application was prepared and submitted for two three-bedroom houses, each approximately 125 sqm, positioned at either end of the site. Planning permission was successfully granted in 2014.
To safeguard the approval, foundations were poured to ensure the three-year planning consent remained live.
Building on this success, we later returned to the site with a revised scheme for six high-quality starter homes. These were designed as prefabricated, two-storey dwellings of 58 sqm, combining efficient layouts with cost-effective construction. Planning permission for this scheme was granted in 2023, unlocking the site’s full development potential.