Decision due on redevelopment of former Syngenta site in Fernhurst

Comer Homes Group is looking to build 210 new homes, a cafe, retail and community use buildings, while retaining the existing Pagoda building on land off Henley Old Road.

A former army barracks in the Second World War, the site was redeveloped in the 1980s by ICI.

There are a number of buildings on site including pre-fabricated World War II structures, portable cabins and single storey workshops, the most prominent of which are the Highfield office building which is three-storeys in height and the four-storey building known as the Pagoda, which is currently the head office and showroom for Aspinal of London.

Longfield House, located at the west of the site, occupied by Nicholson’s Auctioneers, does not form part of a planning application by Comer.

It is due to be discussed by the South Downs National Park Authority’s planning committee on Thursday (March 12).

The proposed 210 dwellings are made up of 105 houses and 105 flats.

Of these 43 dwellings for affordable housing, with 32 for social rent and 11 for shared ownership.

The majority of the new buildings, 79 houses and ten blocks of flats, would be three-storeys high, with a relatively small number, 26, of two-storey houses.

The scheme includes a 20m wide new coppice woodland running east to west across the site.

Meanwhile two new north-south green links would join up the Cooksbridge Meadow Nature Reserve with this new area of woodland.

A village square would also be created north of the Pagoda building, comprising three blocks of flats with the proposed cafe, retail and community hub units on the ground floor centred around a public space.

There would also be a village green offering a more formal open space.

Off-site footpath improvements works are also propose. These would include a 1.5metre wide footway from the site to Fernhurst village, along the A286 with a new section from the site to the existing bus stop on the eastern side of the road.

Electric vehicle charging points are also planned for each dwelling and at least two available for visitors and staff for commercial units.

A culverted water course would be reopened, while at least ten per cent of total roof area proposed will consist of green roofs.

There are also plans for am minibus service travelling to and from Haslemere Railway Station and Fernhurst village alongside a car-sharing club.

Officers have concluded: “It is considered that the proposed high quality landscape-led design of this major development will have an overall positive impact on the ability of the environment to contribute goods and services and provide multiple benefits, including health and well-being benefits for the future occupiers of the scheme.

“It is considered that exceptional circumstances exist and the development would be in the public interest, including opportunities to conserve and enhance the special qualities of the national park, to grant permission, particularly given the land is allocated for development in a made neighbourhood plan.”