Plans for former depot back on the drawing board

Proposals for 22 homes on former Travis Perkins depot the latest in a string of applications for site

REVISED plans to turn the former Travis Perkins depot in Mill Lane, Newbury, into houses have been submitted yet again.

The site has been subject to a number of previous planning applications stretching back as far as 2010.

The latest application, by developer David Wilson Homes Southern, is for 22 homes at the abandoned brown field site – 30 per cent of which will be affordable.

The proposed new development will comprise of a mixture of two-bedroom apartments and two- and three-bedroom houses, up to three storeys high.

Forty-four car parking spaces will be provided for the 22 proposed apartments and access to the development utilises the old entrance to the former timber yard off Mill Lane.

A new footpath link is also proposed into the Windsor Court development to the east of the site. In 2010, David Wilson Homes submitted plans for 87 homes at the site, but that application was later withdrawn amid concerns by local residents of the impact on the local road network.

Revised plans for 57 homes were submitted in 2011, but were subsequently refused by West Berkshire Council.

Scaled back plans for 37 homes were approved in 2013, but the developer later discovered the scheme was unviable.

As a result, this new application for a change of use from office to 22 residential homes has been submitted.

In its latest application, David Wilson Homes alludes to the previous problems, saying the site is providing them with a “very low profit margin” as a result of “various unfortunate circumstances”.