After considerable to-ing and fro-ing, revised plans have been approved to build new housing at 29 Beaverbank Place (Ref. 13/03575/FUL).
A total of 41 flats in two blocks will result (27 two-bedroom, 14 one-bedroom), along with new pedestrian and car access (13 parking spaces), with open space (3 private gardens), and a new footway connecting to the play park on Broughton Road.
The easiest way to understand what’s coming is to read developer Scott Hobson’s revised Design and Access Statement (dated 31 March 2014) and the Council Report at the foot of this page. For our previous coverage, see Breaking news, 17.9.13.)
Police Scotland had originally expressed doubts about a pedestrian route through the development, but these appear to have been addressed by new undertakings concerning fence height and a secure gate.
The Cockburn Association objected on the grounds that the 5-storey element of Block A would create a canyon effect on this narrow road. They were also unpersuaded by the aesthetic delights of unrelieved brown bricks.
The developers responded by setting the principal block further back from the road. As for colour:
We have designed the finishes to help blend the recent student housing development back into the historic tenement by utilising a brick palette that is toned to suit the neighbouring urban fabric. Zinc caps out the taller 5 storey block to give the building a darker top storey (akin to surrounding slate roofs) and for technical reasons. It also creates a datum with the adjacent block and street line of 4 storeys.
So, still plenty of brown but a more generous proportion of buff. Plus dark and graphite grey.
Something altogether cheerier and more colourful is proposed for the Broughton Road playspace, where‘meaningful’ improvements are promised.
Spurtle approves of the scheme. We have reservations about it, but these are outweighed by the merits of bringing a wasted, empty, derelict site close to the city centre into residential use at a reasonable level of density. We like the provision of 10 units as affordable housing. The developer will pay £13,152 to ‘help alleviate accommodation pressures’on Broughton Primary School.
Taken as a whole, it doesn’t’t set our heather alight, but we recognise it as a necessary, beneficial and reasonably attractive addition to the neighbourhood.