Kingsdown Conservation Group

Application No: 18/04977/P
UHBT’s application to demolish all 36 locally-listed flats on Eugene Street, and the existing c.150 place multi-storey car park, in order to build another c.820 place, eight-storey car park alongside was refused planning permission by the planning committee on Wednesday 13th March 2019.

Kingsdown Conservation Group had objected to the application.

The planning case officer’s report to the planning committee recommending refusal can be viewed at planningonline.bristol.gov.uk

This is our response to the proposed UHB multi-storey carpark. We hope that as many residents as possible write in and express their opinion on this planning application.  This is a link to the relevant on line comment page.

https://planningonline.bristol.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=PFCEQKDN06900

18/04977/P  Outline application to block up Eugene Street, to demolish all 36 purpose-built flats on Eugene Street, and to demolish the existing serviceable c.150 bay multi-storey car park, in order to build an 8-storey 820 bay multi-storey car park on the cleared area of ground between Eugene Street and Montague Hill South

Kingsdown Conservation Group is aware of the difficulties faced by those who need easy access to the wide range of buildings administered by UHB. However, it regards the proposed solution as obsolete.

Times have changed. Local roads are highly congested and pollution levels are excessive. Smarter solutions must be found and the city is concentrating on developing new ways for people to travel. The proposed multi-storey car park would conflict with the joint transport plan. In the context of its agenda to keep expanding clinical provision annually by between four and five per cent, the Trust should integrate its thinking and decision making with existing parking provision and emerging modes of transport. The Trust cannot remain trapped on a treadmill of attempting to accommodate an ever increasing numbers of patients’ cars.

In addition to the above aspect of the proposals, the Group is shocked to see that the brief has remained effectively unchanged since the idea was floated several years ago. The idea of demolishing 36 fundamentally sound, purpose-built flats is repugnant. The idea of demolishing a functioning c.160 bay multi-storey car park, in order to build another multi-storey car park alongside, is wholly offensive. All the proposed demolition is unsustainable.

The Planning Statement raises The Bristol Core Strategy, as if to imply accordance, yet the proposals conflict with it, including elements of BCS5, BCS10, BCS15, BCS20, BCS21 and BCS22.

The proposal’s conceptual approach of wholesale demolition, clearance and re-building would repeat town planning errors made across the nation and notoriously on the slopes of Kingsdown, when Bristol’s most important early Georgian suburb was ransacked in the 1950s and 60s. The mass, height and length of the multi-storey car park would assault Kingsdown’s surviving historic townscape by being built to an entirely different scale and, unforgivably, at a low level of the escarpment. Views in and out of the Kingsdown Conservation Area would be obstructed.

Both the Grade II Listed Montague Court and the Locally Listed King Edward VII Memorial Hospital building are immediately adjacent to the proposed eight-storey car park and the setting of other heritage assets that are in The Stokes Croft Conservation Area and The St James’s Parade Conservation Area would be substantially harmed by the brash new building.

The Group profoundly objects to the proposals and intends to lodge further comment elaborating on certain aspects.

At their regular meeting in October the Group discussed the following:

Removal of setts on Dove Street at rear of 22 Fremantle Square. We will investigate whether this is on public land.

25 Somerset St planning application for new garage.  The group commented: a preference for a rubble to a brick wall.

Replacement of dead or dying trees.  The group will ask BCC what is available.

The group will investigate putting some hanging signs on our shops in Cotham Road South (as in St Marks Road, Easton).

Matters discussed at the August meeting

42 Tyndall’s Park Road – The Group has lodged an objection to an application to remove the boundary wall to the street and devote the front garden to hardstanding for three motor cars, in conflict with local and national planning policy.

LED Advertising. In common with other local and national amenity societies, we continue to try to resist the advance of illuminated advertisements in conservation areas and in the setting of listed buildings. This month we have objected to proposals to introduce LED advertising panels to bus stops on Triangle West and at eight further locations.

19 Ninetree Hill – We have lodged comment on a current application to extend one of a pair of what may be the earliest remaining, free-standing, semi-detached houses in Kingsdown.

12E Alfred Place – An appeal (Ref: APP/Z0116/W/18/3207120) has been lodged against the refusal of the retrospective application 17/01805/H (which can be seen at www.bristol.gov.uk/planningonline ) to build the roof extension, which can be seen from Montague Place.

Individuals can submit their views on-line, check the information and progress using the Planning Casework Service at https://acp.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/CaseSearch.aspx. One should use the last seven characters of the Appeal Ref above to search for this case. Further guidance to taking part in planning appeals is available on the Planning Portal website at www.planningportal.gov.uk/planning/appeals/planningappeals.

The Group and many individuals strongly objected to the application.

Hospital car park. We fear UBHT intend to purse their misguided ambition to demolish all 36 of the purpose-built flats on Eugene Street and also to demolish their existing 250 place multi-storey car park opposite in order to build an 850 place eight-storey car park. A recent ‘drop-in’ event was well attended by Kingsdown residents. The enormous scale of the proposed construction was not clearly shown in the presentation. The Group oppose this shocking scheme.

Old Hospital. Both individuals and the Group had lodged comment in support of the welcome initiative of the Planning Department to extend The St James’s Parade Conservation Area to include the site bounded by Marlborough Street, Whitson Street and Lower Maudlin Street, on which the BRI Old Building, its (recently listed) chapel stand, together with the listed buildings of The Eye Hospital on Lower Maudlin Street