Flats next to busy Crawley road refused

The application, from Albany Homes Southern Ltd, was for eight two-bedroom and six three-bedroom homes to be built in four short terraces on a strip of land at Northside, behind Daffodil Crescent.

The somewhat tatty site is currently used by a florist and car wash.

At a meeting of the planning committee on Tuesday (January 12), officers raised concerns about the impact the development would have on trees, saying there was not enough space for existing trees to thrive or new ones to be established.

There were also concerns about a shortfall in affordable housing, that the houses would be out of character for the area and that whoever lived there would face ‘unacceptable levels of noise’ from Balcombe Road.

Kim Jaggard (Con, Maidenbower) said: “Just because somewhere is untidy and left to fall into untidiness by the owners doesn’t mean to say we should allow poor quality development.”

Officers told the meeting that the principle of development on the site could be acceptable – but this application was not the right one.

To view the plans, log on to planningregister.crawley.gov.uk and search for CR/2020/0592/FUL.

This was the second refusal received by Albany Homes Southern this month.

An application to build a veterinary practice on another patch of Northside land was turned down as planning officers felt in would be ‘incongruous’ and ‘cramped’.