Balcony blues and a Crying Tree - a week in Merseyside planning

The Mersey Monitor trawls local authority planning portals so you don’t have to

By Lisa Rand

One thing more or less guaranteed to see a bit of controversy when it comes to council decision-making relates to one of its most nebulous functions - planning. From bewildered residents being told their fences are no good to developments that could forever alter the character of an area, there’s always a curious story or two to be found trawling the lists of what’s been submitted for approval to our local authorities. Recent weeks have proved no exception.

The planning applications mentioned below are not by any means exhaustive, and you may well think they’re not the most important. We might have picked out applications that illustrate interesting issues or are just a bit odd rather than the ‘big ones’ for this regular round up. We’ll probably be talking quite a lot about planning, so you may find the development you’re interested in crop up in another article by the Monitor.

In any case, we’d love you to get in touch if you think we’ve missed a key planning issue, or you‘d like us to take a look at a particular development. Just drop us an email in confidence at themerseymonitor@outlook.com or give us a call on 07442 402 023.

We can’t guarantee we’ll look into every suggestion, but we’ll do our best to and we’ll certainly get back in touch, so please do say hi and let us know what you think we should be looking at.

No more tears

First up for this week’s edition is a perhaps aptly named former pub, The Crying Tree, in Grange Lane. This erstwhile Gateacre drinking establishment could be about to find new life as a large nursery after plans were approved by Liverpool council last week.

Catering to 100 of our city’s youngest and dearest, the latest plans for the building were approved on 31st March at a meeting of the city council’s planning committee. Constructed as a family home in the 1880s and later turned into a pub, which closed over a decade ago, the listed Victorian Villa now looks set for new life. There was, perhaps to the relief of prospective parents, no indication in the planning documents the nursery intends to keep the former pub’s name.

Not child’s play

It was a day of good news perhaps for city children across the board, as plans were also approved for works at the former Sony Playstation HQ on Stephenson Way in Wavertree to create a series of temporary classrooms for the new, and somewhat delayed, Kings Leadership Academy Wavertree, which is due to open in 2028.

The school’s trust has recently posted an update about work taking place on the site of the nearby former Natwest building, which will also be part of the school. As the post appears to acknowledge, building a new school involves multiple complexities, and it’s fair to say this one has already had a few of its own.

Unsuccessful attempts were made by some councillors to stop specific developments getting permission at the 31st March meeting, including for an application to build a 10-storey residential block submitted by Rosmara Development 4 Ltd to build a block of over 150 flats at Oriel Street in Vauxhall.

Concerns were raised that there weren’t enough units with more than two bedrooms (only three), the development could cause parking problems and that the scheme also appears to have been let off the hook in terms of both social housing and s106 contributions.

Dizzy heights

S106 contributions are paid by a developer to the council and are aimed at mitigating the impact of a development on a local area, although may also, at times controversially, be waived or curtailed if a scheme is deemed to be otherwise not viable.

Some nearby residents told of similar objections as the concerned councillors, including about the height of the building and lack of affordable housing.

The developer had argued in documents submitted ahead of the meeting that, while it was true the development did not adhere to housing mix requirements, mostly one and two beds were the best they could do to make the scheme viable. Similar “best compromise” type arguments were also put forward about other issues identified.

In the end, it’s sometimes a numbers game at the planning committee, and despite the various misgivings put forward, detractors were outvoted six to three with one abstention. With more councillors agreeable to the scheme than not, the way is now paved for the development to go ahead.

HMO good to go

Speaking of numbers games, concerns were also raised about yet another HMO plan for Toxteth, an area which, in common with many other parts of the city, has seen something of an HMO explosion over the past decade. Two councillors argued that converting this particular house of flats on Hartington Road into an eight bed HMO (house of multiple occupancy) would create overdevelopment and was not in accordance with Article 4.

Article 4 is a tool used by councils in a bid to protect areas by restricting certain permitted development rights. It means that schemes which wouldn’t otherwise need full planning permission do - in this case a HMO conversion. Although it does give an extra layer of oversight, it’s not always a sharp instrument, however, because developments may still be approved by councillors - as happened here. The vote was split 8 for 2 against, meaning the conversion may now go ahead.

Tools such as Article 4 operate within a wider framework, involving a complex mix of considerations and regulations around planning. There are rules coming from the National Planning Policy framework, which successive governments like to tinker with from time to time, and others from Local and even Neighbourhood plans, which may be more or less regularly renewed and have ‘weight’ of various persuasions when planning decisions are made. There’s also a host of other regulations that may sometimes come into play and which can help make planning a heady space to navigate.

Backyard balcony blues

It’s a complicated business and one fraught with potential pitfalls. Something planning experts tend to often agree on is that it’s best to apply for permission before you do the work - or you might find yourself in the same kind of situation as one unfortunate Oxton resident did last week.

They are now faced with the possibility of having to remove their backyard balcony overlooking a cricket club after Wirral Council knocked back their attempts at getting permission after the fact.

Planners considered that the design of the balcony sitting at the rear of a house on Ringwood in leafy Oxton and made as it was of glass and steel, to be suitably unobtrusive and generally acceptable.

Consideration was also given to whether it might present privacy issues for the Old Parkonians cricket club, which the house backs on to, although this was ultimately not deemed of concern as nobody lives there.

The problem, according to the planning report, was the balcony’s potential to infringe on neighbours’ rights to privacy. Attempts had been made to take this into account, such as putting frosting on the glass at the side. People could, however just pop their heads round the glass, the report noted, as officers refused the application.