Plans for 80–100 residences and 150–300 square metres of commercial floorspace on Beaverhall Road go on display today.
The drop-in session, which is free and open to all members of the public, will be held from 2–8pm in Broughton Primary School. Representatives from Springfield Properties PLC and Yeoman McAllister Architects will be present.
A development on this scale will have significant effects on residents throughout Broughton, and we urge as many of you as possible to go along, ask questions, and make your views known.
More background to this story is available at Breaking news (29.6.11).
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Update
Spurtle visited the exhibition this afternoon, and although the plans at this stage 'are fluid and subject to change', they do offer a little more clarity about what the developer is intending.
- There seems to be provision for around 280 new residents.
- Currently, six 4-bedroom, private townhouses are proposed, which would be accessed only from the Powderhall Village side of the development. (Their six parking spaces would be in addition to current provision there.) These houses would infill the vacant strip of grass on the south-west side of Powderhall Road which already has planning consent for this kind of use.
- Some 30, 2-bedroom private apartments are also envisaged. These would be set back and accessed by 2 new roads, one of which would enter alongside the northern end of the existing Victorian tenement. Each apartment would have a parking space within the site.[img_assist|nid=1993|title=|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=200|height=154]
- Fronting the east side of Beaverhall Road itself, 54 'affordable-rent', 2-bedroom apartments are proposed, with 28 per cent of them enjoying parking in accordance with Council guidelines. These would be sold to a housing association, and be rented out at 80 percent of the going market rate for eligible tenants (following Scottish Government criteria – see files below). Rents would be inclusive of factoring.
- Underneath the 'affordable-rent' apartments, at ground level would be the business space. This would be Class 4, so might be occupied by, for example, a print studio, so long as its operation was compatible with nearby residential use.
- Springfield hopes to enter its plans into the Edinburgh Planning system in September 2011. If all went smoothly, it would hope to sell the first completed units between August 2012 and January 2013.
Apparently visitors to the exhibition who live in the tenement on Beaverhall Road have already raised objections to the height and massing of the proposed development, to which developers' representatives replied that all the new buildings would respect the 25º 'obstruction-angle rule' and the 43º 'avoidance of overshadow angle rule'.
To Spurtle's untrained eye, the proposal seems inoffensive at this stage. Yeoman McAllister Architects were responsible for the Powderhall Village plans, and these ones have a very similar feel. We also think the provision of 'affordable rent' housing serves a need, and might encourage young couples and small families to move into the area, which would be good for Broughton.
If you visit the exhibition and wish to comment, make sure your remarks arrive at Springfield Properties PLC, House, 3 Central Park Avenue, Larbert, Falkirk FK5 4RX. After that date, any comments should be made to the Planning Department at City of Edinburgh Council once a full planning application has been made.
[Image from FreeFoto.com; map from Google Maps]
