It’s another “No” for Kennet Centre redevelopment

It’s another NO for the redevelopment of the Kennet Centre in Newbury.

Wednesday night’s district planning committee of West Berkshire Council kicked the plans out, in a third epic meeting in four months.

Parking, no affordable homes, lack of outside space for the number of flats and the size and scale of the 427 flat multi-storey development were the main reasons.

In a four-and-a-half hour meeting, the committee voted down the latest plans, citing major worries about the size and scale and impact on town centre conservation.

They said it would ‘irreparably ruin’ the look of Newbury and it was an ‘existential threat’ to the character of the town.

Parking was a key issue, with conservationists from the Newbury Society saying 1,168 signatures had been gathered online against the scheme.

They said Block D was a ‘six-storey wall of flats’ visible in Market Place was ‘huge’ compared to the height of the cinema.

They said Block E was a five-storey block of 40 flats with no dedicated parking. 

And that Block S – 121 flats, and eight storeys high – would require 126 parking spaces.

There was heckling from the public seats as the developer Lochialort’s director Hugo Haig made his case.

“This is a judgement call on the effect on the conservation area,” he said.

“We have reduced from 11 storeys to seven or eight.  The considered design means it is hard to be seen from the conservation area.”

He said the plans should be weighted against the benefit the scheme brings to Newbury.

But the conservationists didn’t agree and said none of the photos show the development from Donnington Castle or areas outside Newbury looking in.

They described the blocks as an ‘eight-storey canyon which will be a wind tunnel’.

Development costs are put at around £158m, and Mr Haig did his best to spin the lack of affordable homes (because they can’t make enough profit with them included), to extol the virtues of having 34 affordable shops.

“We are replacing a shopping centre and those shops are affordable and ready to move into,” he said.

“It will bring up to £8.5m additional spending for the town.”

And he scotched the idea that parking would be an issue as he didn’t believe people with studio and one-bed flats will necessarily have cars, citing a similar scheme in Reading.

The Government’s new planning requirements were also brought to bear to bolster the plan’s acceptance.  West Berkshire has to build an additional 500 units every year for the next five years.

It was claimed that to put the equivalent number of homes on a green field site would need 50 acres, so development of the brownfield site would fit with the Government’s plans.

But affordability kept raising its head, as the council policy is to have 30 per cent affordable housing, which would mean 128 flats in the development.

Mr Haig revealed that the flats – all proposed as buy to lets – would rent between £1,200 for a one-bed, to £2,000 for a three-bed flat.

In the end, the scheme, which was recommended for approval by the council’s officers, was rejected.

Lochialort, which owns the Kennet Centre, has not commented on next steps.