We were appointed by the client, the landowners, to make an application for planning permission for an ambitious scheme for 20+ apartments on a site close to the urban centre and adjacent to the local river.
The local flooding in 2007 which was cause by a blockage upstream, adjacent to a bridge, occurred during the period of general review of flood risks by the Environment Agency, and altered perceptions of sustainable development adjacent to rivers.
This led to a need to redesign the project and reduce the number of units, which in turn became caught up in the economic collapse of 2007/08 and the drop in demand for apartments, as well as local prices.
Consequently, a scheme is now being redesigned on the basis of a terrace of more traditional town houses. This may ultimately provide a similar number of bed spaces on the site but provides a much smaller number of “dwellings”, thereby through a combination of environmental and economic circumstance a different sustainable solution is being delivered.
