Thursday, April 25, 2024
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New Victoria Park café gets a step closer

A new café in Victoria Park has got a step closer, as Newbury Town Council have applied for planning permission for the venture.

The Council is committed to providing a café that will operate 364 days per year and be an important and valuable community hub for the Town. In accordance with the Town Council’s green credentials, they also want to ensure that the new building is designed to enable carbon neutral operation.

The design proposals include solar electricity generation and air source heat pumps for heating. The Council have a target to gain BREEAM Excellent and carbon neutrality for the design and construction of the building.

The proposed Community café will be bigger than the existing kiosk, with a footprint roughly that of the kiosk and the adjoining store. It will have a toilet with baby changing facilities and disabled access, as well as male, female and disabled toilets for users of the Park.

The building will feature a specialist Changing Places facility with hoist and changing table.

It will also be a base for the CCTV hub in the Park and have facilities for our tennis coaches.

The building will be of traditional timber clad construction. The new building would fit in the same position as the existing buildings – which will be demolished to make way for this improved facility. 

Full height glazing and bi-fold doors would be used to open up and connect the building to the surrounding park and views to the play area and beyond.

The costs of the community café will be funded through a combination of a public works loan and contributions from developers.

The Town Council hopes to have planning permission by January 2021.  

To have a look at the plans, please click on the link below and enter reference number “20/02294″ in the search field:

https://publicaccess.westberks.gov.uk/online-applications/