Issue - meetings

Issue - meetings

21/03582/FUL: The Deaf and Hard of Hearing Centre, 10 Littlegate Street, Oxford OX1 1RL

Meeting: 16/08/2022 - Planning - Oxford City Planning Committee (Item 30)

30 21/03582/FUL: The Deaf and Hard of Hearing Centre, 10 Littlegate Street, Oxford OX1 1RL pdf icon PDF 816 KB

Site Address:

The Deaf And Hard Of Hearing Centre, 10 Littlegate Street, Oxford, OX1 1RL

Proposal:

Conversion and partial redevelopment of the Oxford Deaf and Hard of Hearing Centre to create a hotel (Use Class C1) with ancillary community facility venue. The proposal includes the retention, refurbishment and repair of the principal grade II listed building (10 Littlegate Street); conversion, refurbishment and repair of the former Baptist Chapel building; demolition of side and rear extensions (10a and 10b Littlegate Street); erection of a 4-storey side extension and part 2/4 storey rear extension; provision of hard/soft landscaping; installation of green/blue roofs and green walls; and provision of 2 no. accessible car parking spaces (with EV charging points) and staff/guest cycle parking.

Reason at Committee:

The proposal is a major development.

Recommendation:

The Oxford City Planning Committee is recommended to:

1.      approve the application for the reasons given in the report and subject to the required planning conditions set out in section 5 of the report and grant planning permission subject to:

·       the satisfactory completion of a legal agreement under section.106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and other enabling powers to secure the planning obligations set out in the recommended heads of terms which are set out in this report; and

2.      agree to delegate authority to the Head of Planning Services to:

·      finalise the recommended conditions and informatives as set out in the report including such refinements, amendments, additions and/or deletions as the Head of Planning Services considers reasonably necessary;

·      finalise the recommended legal agreement under section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and other enabling powers as set out in this report, including refining, adding to, amending and/or deleting the obligations detailed in the heads of terms set out in this report (including to dovetail with and where appropriate, reinforce the final conditions and informatives to be attached to the planning permission) as the Head of Planning Services considers reasonably necessary; and

·       complete the section 106 legal agreement referred to above and issue the planning permission.

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Committee considered an application (21/03582/FUL) for conversion and partial redevelopment of the Oxford Deaf and Hard of Hearing Centre to create a hotel (Use Class C1) with ancillary community facility venue.  The proposal included the retention, refurbishment and repair of the principal Grade II listed building (10 Littlegate Street); conversion, refurbishment and repair of the former Baptist Chapel building; demolition of side and rear extensions (10a and 10b Littlegate Street); erection of a four storey side extension and part 2/4 storey rear extension; provision of hard / soft landscaping; installation of green / blue roofs and green walls; and provision of 2 no. accessible car parking spaces (with EV charging points) and staff / guest cycle parking.

The Planning Officer gave a presentation on the application.  In addition to the information presented at the 19 July meeting this also included new information relating to consideration of paragraph 187 of the NPPF and policy V7 of the Oxford Local Plan 2036 in relation to noise breakout as had been requested by the Committee.

The following was highlighted:

·        A noise breakout assessment had been submitted, which included proposed insulation and secondary glazing to ensure adequate noise insulation for the hotel bedrooms.  This would not affect the fabric of the listed building.

 

·        A further 33 objection comments had been received since the July Committee meeting.  These broadly related to: concern that a live music venue would be lost; a reduction in the amount of parking; a lack of reference to live music in the application submission; lack of an operation and management plan for a live music venue, or a separate servicing plan; lack of benchmark analysis about how the live music venue had been run previously and whether this could continue in the same manner; concern that the capacity of the venue would be reduced from 150 to 100 people; concern that the opening hours of the hotel would not match those expected for a live music venue in the community hall; bar and licensing arrangements; concern that a Section 106 agreement could be modified or discharged after 5 years; concern that the whole of the site would no longer be designated for a community use; comment that noise from the music venue disturbing local residents was not a material planning consideration, live music had not disturbed local residents in the past; comment that new developments should protect themselves from external noise sources and restrictions should not be put on the venue; concern that the building could not be adequately insulated; concern that the committee would have made its decision before noise breakout testing was carried out; and concern that Planning Officers could not impose restrictions on licensing.

 

·        The Planning Officer reported that there had not previously been any community access agreement for the site, and the letting of the hall for community use had been at the choice of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing charity.  Officers were seeking to improve public access to the facility by securing a community  ...  view the full minutes text for item 30


Meeting: 19/07/2022 - Planning - Oxford City Planning Committee (Item 21)

21 21/03582/FUL: The Deaf and Hard of Hearing Centre, 10 Littlegate Street, Oxford OX1 1RL pdf icon PDF 970 KB

Site Address:

The Deaf And Hard Of Hearing Centre, 10 Littlegate Street, Oxford OX1 1RL

 

Proposal:

Conversion and partial redevelopment of the Oxford Deaf and Hard of Hearing Centre to create a hotel (Use Class C1) with ancillary community facility venue. The proposal includes the retention, refurbishment and repair of the principal grade II listed building (10 Littlegate Street); conversion, refurbishment and repair of the former Baptist Chapel building; demolition of side and rear extensions (10a and 10b Littlegate Street); erection of a 4-storey side extension and part 2/4 storey rear extension; provision of hard/soft landscaping; installation of green/blue roofs and green walls; and provision of 2 no. accessible car parking spaces (with EV charging points) and staff/guest cycle parking.

Reason at Committee:

The proposal is a major development.

Recommendation:

The Oxford City Planning Committee is recommended to:

1.      approve the application for the reasons given in the report and subject to the required planning conditions set out in section 12 of this report and grant planning permission subject to:

·     the satisfactory completion of a legal agreement under section.106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and other enabling powers to secure the planning obligations set out in the recommended heads of terms which are set out in this report; and

2.      agree to delegate authority to the Head of Planning Services to:

·     finalise the recommended conditions and informatives as set out in this report including such refinements, amendments, additions and/or deletions as the Head of Planning Services considers reasonably necessary;

·     finalise the recommended legal agreement under section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and other enabling powers as set out in this report, including refining, adding to, amending and/or deleting the obligations detailed in the heads of terms set out in this report (including to dovetail with and where appropriate, reinforce the final conditions and informatives to be attached to the planning permission) as the Head of Planning Services considers reasonably necessary; and

·       complete the section 106 legal agreement referred to above and issue the planning permission.

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Committee considered an application 21/03582/FUL for conversion and partial redevelopment of the Oxford Deaf and Hard of Hearing Centre to create a hotel (Use Class C1) with ancillary community facility venue.  The proposal included the retention, refurbishment and repair of the principal Grade II listed building (10 Littlegate Street); conversion, refurbishment and repair of the former Baptist Chapel Building; demolition of side and rear extensions (10a and 10b Littlegate Street); erection of a 4 storey side extension and part 2/4 storey rear extension; provision of hard / soft landscaping; installation of green / blue roofs and green walls; and provision of 2no accessible car parking spaces (with EV charging) and staff / guest cycle parking.

Planning Officers gave a presentation covering the application and the related Listed Building Consent application 21/03583/LBC which was the subsequent item on the agenda.

The following was highlighted:

·         The proposal involved the removal of 19th century extensions to the listed cottage which were considered to be detrimental to the character of the building;

 

·         Consideration had been given in the proposal to avoid overlooking of the Lucy Faithfull House development currently under construction;

 

·         12 further objections had been received since publication of the report.  These were similar, and all related to the loss of the site as a live music venue, stating that the music community had not been consulted by the applicant at the pre-application stage and that the application submission did not acknowledge that the music community were active users of the site;

 

·         The Planning Officer responded that it was officers’ understanding that the primary use of the site was as the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Centre. The Chapel building, which was sought to be retained, was let to various community users understood to have included, on an ad-hoc basis, some live music.  However, the hall was not considered to be a live music venue within its own right.  The proposal was recommended for approval subject to a Section 106 agreement to secure the hall to be retained for community use which could include live music.  The site was currently vacant so that no access or use of it could currently be made; securing availability for the community through a Section 106 agreement was therefore considered to be an improvement on the current situation;

 

·         The Planning Officer reported that although paragraph 10.33 of the report referred to the former chapel building as being locally listed, it was not currently on the Oxford Heritage Asset Register.  However, officers were able to identify buildings as a local heritage asset through the application process and had done so in this case, with the relevant tests in the NPPF having been applied.

 

Gregory Owen spoke against the application.

Philip Taylor, agent, spoke in favour of the application.

The Committee’s discussions included, but were not limited to, the following points:

·       The extent to which the proposal met the requirements of Local Plan policy V7 which sought to protect and retain existing cultural and community facilities, and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 21