Revised Crawley housing development put forward for ‘cramped’ site near level crossing

The outline plans to build 15 flats in Station Way, Crawley, will be put to a meeting of the borough council’s planning committee on Tuesday January 11.

Submitted by Simco Homes Ltd, the plans, which include two commercial units, were branded ‘contrived’, ‘awkwardly located’ and ‘totally unacceptable’ when they were turned down by the committee in January 2021.

A list of reasons was given for the refusal, such as the over-development of the site; the poor standard of amenity for future occupiers; a lack of information that residents would not suffer unacceptable noise disturbance; unacceptable parking arrangements and a lack of affordable housing.

Simco Homes appealed the decision only to have that, too, refused by a planning inspector in November.

A design and access statement submitted with the application laid out a number of changes made since then.

They included rearranging the ground-floor bedrooms, removing the ground-floor windows which faced Station Way and adding a green wall, and adding cycle stands in front of the commercial unit, making a total of 38 bike stands including those inside the building.

The re-worked application still did not impress planning officers, who have recommended that it be refused again.

A report to the committee said the design ‘remains very poor’ and added: “Overall, the applicant has failed to address all the reasons that the inspector used to dismiss the recent appeal.

“The proposal is considered to be of extremely poor quality and to represent substantial overdevelopment of the site.

“Refusal is strongly recommended.”

To view the application, log on to planningregister.crawley.gov.uk and search for CR/2021/0621/OUT.