Extra Care Housing development rejected by town council

RECTORY Homes has failed to persuade Thame Town Council to recommend that the local planning authority approves its planning application for an Extra Care housing development on the site known as The Elms, in Upper High Street, Thame.

Meadow land at ‘The Elms’ in Thame, that Rectory Homes wants to build on

This particular plan was the second, new proposal submitted since Rectory Homes did have a plan for a housing development on the site, approved back in July 2015.

This latest application is for a development comprising apartments, houses and a communal residents’ centre with basement parking and storage areas, a new public open space, provision of new vehicle access from Elms Road and a new pedestrian / cycle link onto the Upper High Street with associated infrastructure works and landscaping. It would consist of five main blocks of one and two-bedroom self-contained units, of between 10 and 22 units per block. A further two small blocks would contain two self-contained, two-bedroom apartments and four, three-bedroom “houses”.

The applicant had claimed that the Thame Neighbourhood Plan was out of date and that such schemes were supported by Sajid Javid, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. Rectory Homes also held that, because the bulk, scale and massing of the development having been already approved as part of the original application, anything that fits inside a similar shell should be approved.

If approved, this new scheme would create 23 jobs, create less traffic movements in adjoining streets and a small increase in the public space provided, Rectory Home’s spokesperson told the council.

“I do not believe that the evidence is there for such an institution,” said the Neighbourhoood Plan Continuity Officer, Graeme Markland.

The town council agreed with a report before them from its Neighbourhood Plan Continuity Officer, that the proposal went against the Thame Neighbourhood Plan in five specifics (Access the full report HERE) and voted to recommend refusal of the application.