A New Town resident seeks planning permission to demolish this 3-space flat-roofed garage and replace it with a two-bedroom, 2-bathroom, 3-loo mews dwelling on land behind Category A-listed 65 Northumberland Street (Northumberland Street NW Lane; Ref. 14/01453/FUL).
The proposed building is on three floors, with, we think at least 3 car parking spaces retained at ground level.
Materials for external walls would include natural stone and coursed rubble with ‘ashlar lintols, cills and skews’. Doors and windows would all be painted timber, Velux skylights would comprise ‘conservation style recessed flashings’ and grey powder coated glazing bars to horizontal skylight. The roof would be natural slate.
Spurtle has no gripe with the development, although we note that it proposes being one storey higher than its neighbours opposite (pictured below, shimmering in the spring heat). It looks like yet one more pied-a-terre in a mews lane where other examples have been developed already.
We are, however, slightly perplexed by the generous proportions of the garage in relation to everything else. The property would seem to be designed for a future inhabitant with a small bladder and preference for cars over people.
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Since first posting this article, Spurtle has been sent evidence of local experimental activity on Northumberland Street North West Lane.
'The orange balloons in the photo [below)], taken outside the Pinstripe office ... show the 8-metre high ridgeline of the proposed erection.'
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In related news, the last project of architect and Broughton resident Professor Howard Liddell (Issue 217) has been nominated among the top 10 eco homes in the UK as part of the Guardian's 'Live Better Challenge'.
Plummerswood in Innerleithen was built in 2010, and is a Brettstapel structure constructed from timber without the use of nails. Using Passivhaus principles, the house uses less energy than dwellings designed to achieve Level 6 in the government's code for sustainable homes.
Gaia Group's Sandy Liddell Halliday urges all those who favour 'beautiful ecological architecture' to vote for her late husband's design.