Limes Guest House changes approved

Gracewell Healthcare applied to West Berkshire Council to change their application as well as reduce their planning standards (BREEAM) from excellent to very good.
The western area planning committee recently heard how the applicants wanted to make changes to the application, which was approved earlier in the year.
The changes included adding one more car parking space, two extra bedrooms and internal re-arrangements.
Newbury town councillor Phil Barnett (Lib Dem, Clayhill) said that the town council was against this application as it felt it could be the start of a list of requests by the developer.
District councillor Hillary Cole (Con, Chieveley) said: “This application has been put forward by somebody who is used to running nursing homes, so they have put forward an application that will have a better living experience for the residents.”
The application was approved.
In a second application, permission was being sought for a condition requiring the care home to meet BREEAM standards to an ‘excellent’ level varied to instead meet a ‘very good’ level, on the grounds that the former would be difficult to achieve. BREEAM assessments rate how sustainable and environmentally-friendly a building is.
Mr Barnett said that councillors were very keen to see a high level in all future developments.
Gracewell Healthcare's BREEAM expert, Malcolm Dunne, said that they were currently only about half way to achieving excellent status.
Jeff Beck (Con, Clay Hill) said: “They are not prepared to pay the additional costs of solar panels. To me it seems like a cost reduction exercise.”
If the council did not agree to lower the BREEAM status, Gracewell Healthcare would need to resubmit their entire application so that it could achieve the excellent level.
Mrs Cole said that having only approved the Core Strategy last year, in which they demanded that all developments met excellent standard, the council should not accept anything less from Gracewell Healthcare.
However, councillor David Allen (Lib Dem, Victoria) proposed to approve the application and other members agreed.