A developer who wanted to demolish the Carlton Tavern to make way for a care home has lost his appeal against a local planning decision.
An independent inspector has ruled that the building has historic interest and the proposal would damage protected trees.
The inspector also refused to award costs against the Council
t developers
An appeal by Crown Care against the refusal of planning permission to build a care home on the site of the Carlton Tavern has been announced.
The appeal is to be decided on the basis of an exchange of written statements by the parties and a site visit by an Inspector
Any representations must be received by the Planning Inspectorate by 6th July 2018; late representations will
normally not be considered.
Interesting that the Council strategy for providing elderly persons care beds is still dependent on a 74 bed facility on the Carlton Tavern site.
The site was recently refused planning permission for an elderly persons care home by the Council’s own planning committee.
The revelation comes in a paper which considers how the Morrell House home will be closed.
City of York care strategy report April 2018
With the major parties now being well on their way to selecting candidates for the 15th February Holgate by election, local voters may well be asking “can we do better than the present lot?”
One test of a good local Councillor is how sensitive they are to local opinion and how proactive they are in leading and supporting local campaigns. In Holgate there have been several major issues over the last couple of years which prove a clue to the answer.
York central access route
The preferred access route of the York Central development was decided in 2007. The link would be from Water Lane and would have the advantage of providing a “by pass” for the Leeman Road area. It had the advantage of avoiding the busy Poppleton Road communities. In 2013, the local Councillor James Alexander brokered a deal which saw the council buy land for a route which passed close to Cleveland Street (Chancery Rise) . This route was approved by the Labour Executive with two, of the Holgate Wards three Councillors, supporting it. It wasn’t until the Council leadership changed in 2015 that the plan was reviewed. Opposition to the Chancery Rise option was led almost entirely by residents. No Leadership was provided by Holgate councillors. The Chancery Rise option has now been dropped.
Severus nature reserve
More recently, a planning application to develop land between Lindsey Avenue and the Water Tower (Severus SRE) was submitted by Yorkshire Housing. The opposition to the proposals was led entirely by residents. 159 letters of objection were tabled at the Planning committee meeting held on 16th November. Many objected to the loss of a natural nature reserve. Only one Holgate Councillor attended the Planning committee meeting although the application was refused.
Arson attack on Lodge
West Bank Park
An active voluntary group now helps to sustain the West Bank Park. To address anti-social behaviour issues, they have used “crowd funding” arrangements to secure the park at night. Crime concerns peaked last year when the park lodge was set on fire. It remains as a monument to ineffective policing in the area. There is no evidence that local Councillors have prioritised addressing the issue, although they did authorise a Ward Committee* donation of £2000 to the gate locking project
Carlton Tavern planning application
An application to demolish the Carlton Tavern Pub attracted widespread concern. Opposition was led entirely by residents. Only one Holgate Councillor recorded an objection to the plan when a report was presented to the planning committee in December. The demolition proposal was refused although an appeal against the decision is expected.
Closure of Acomb Police Station
Two years ago, North Yorkshire Police announced that they intended to close the Police station on Acomb Road. The plan might see an alternative depot established in Lowfields. However, the present site provides a high-profile hub for community safety activities plus good access to the whole of west York. The Holgate ward Councillors have failed to oppose the closure plan.
The Holgate area is fortunate in having many active voluntary groups. The Holgate Windmill Preservation Society is an inspiration for many while – against the odds – the Poppleton Road Memorial Hall continues to be sustained entirely by volunteers.
Whether these, and other, local groups get the support they deserve is open to question.
We will try to answer that question next week.
*NB. Most of the delegated Holgate Ward Committee budget for 2017 remains unused.
Planning permission, to demolish the Carlton Tavern and use the site for an elderly persons home, was refused last night.
In effect the Planning Committee reversed a decision taken a couple of months ago when the Chair had to use his casting vote to determine the issue.
This prompted threats of a Judicial review of the process.
The applicants now have a right of appeal against the latest decision, so it is likely to be several months before the fate of the building is finally clear.
Officials are recommending that permission be given for the Carlton Tavern pub to be demolished and replaced with a care home.
A planning committee meeting taking place on 13th December will vote again on the issue following threats of a legal challenge to a decision to approve the proposal taken at its October meeting.
At that time the committee chair had to use his casting vote to determine the application.
The officer report now clarifies their interpretation of national and European guidance.
Over 150 objections to the plan have been recorded.
It looks like there will be a re-run of the debate and vote on the future of the Carlton Tavern. The Planning Committee (on the casting vote of the Chairman) agreed last month that the pub be demolished to make way for an elderly care home.
Various sources on social media are now claiming that the Council will look again at the proposal following threats of a Judicial Review by a national amenity society.
Council officials have, apparently, agreed to further clarify the planning advice that they gave the committee.
Quite whether this will make any difference remains to be seen. It is at least a possibility that different Councillors may attend the meeting making it possible that a different conclusion will be reached.
We will see.
It seems that the Council is caught between a rock and a hard place.
Planning committee Councillors voted last night to approve a proposal to demolish the Carlton Tavern and replace it with an elderly care facility. Ironically the decision was taken on the casting vote of a Chairman who would not have been in that position had he not been arbitrarily removed from his Executive post in September by the Council Leader. With a different Chair, the decision might have gone the other way, although the applicants would no doubt feel that they would have had a good chance of winning the inevitable subsequent appeal.
Next up, in an important series of planning decisions pending on the Acomb side of the City, is consideration of plans for the Sugar Works and former Manor school site on Boroughbridge Road.
The Council has dithered for over 3 years in getting this, apparently ideal, brown field housing site off the drawing board. The owners finally lost patience and have appealed to the Secretary of State to intervene on grounds of “non-determination” by the York Council. The planning application was first submitted in 2014.
Consultation had started in 2013
Bizarrely the Planning committee must now formally say whether they would have approved the application had it been presented to them.
They are being asked to consider “the development of the site comprising up to 1,100 residential units, community uses (D1/D2) and new public open space with details of access (to include new access points at Millfield Lane and Boroughbridge Road and a new link road, crossing the Former Manor School Site) and demolition of the Former Manor School buildings”
Officials are recommending that the proposal be opposed.
They list many deficiencies in the plan while acknowledging that the site was slated for housing development in the Draft Local Plan tabled in 2011 (by the then LibDem led Council), by the Labour Council in their 2014 Draft Local Plan and again by the new Coalition administration last year.
The main reasons for refusing the application are listed as:
There has been a lot of talk recently about allocating the former Manor School playing field as a public park. In 2012 the then Labour controlled Council identified the need for a more central area of public open space as part of a “community hub” on the site.
Over 9 ha is identified in the current proposals for this purpose (In addition an “off site” new cricket pitch will be provided).
In 2013 the Council sold the former Manor School site, including the playing fields, to ABF – the current planning applicants. The sale was not conditional.
At the very least, the planning meeting should determine whether centralised or peripheral open space is the desired way forward for this development.
NB Proposals to develop the Lowfields playing fields will go before the Planning committee in January.
Applications are also expected soon for the former Oakhaven elderly persons home site on Acomb Road, the adjacent police buildings and for the redevelopment of Windsor House in Ascot Way
An interesting piece below from the York Civic Trust.
However it is too late to register any objection on the Planning web site as the committee report and recommendations have already been written and published. Objectors have three courses of action available to them
It is likely to be “live” on the Councils planning web site shortly https://planningaccess.york.gov.uk/online-applications//
This plan, which would rob the Westfield area of another green space, is being opposed by a well organised “Save Lowfields Green Action Group” who are likely ask the Minister to “call the application in”.
On The Tavern proposal the Civic Trust say,
This is the last week to submit objections to City of York Council to the planning application to demolish West Garth, an 1883 Neo-Tudor villa and in recent years the Carlton Tavern, and replace it with a 72 room, 4-storey private care home.
York Civic Trust have objected to the scheme. Read the objection letter here.
The planning committee’s site visit is at 10.55am on Tuesday 17th October next week and the public are welcome to attend.
Trust members may be interested to read more about the history of the house:
West Garth tells us so much about the development of this affluent York suburb of Holgate where York’s civic leaders built their Victorian and Edwardian villas just outside the city walls. The first owner was Lieut. Col. Arthur H. Russell and his family. A leading figure in the city in the 1880s, he was a solicitor, founder and Vice President of York Conservative Society, and President of York Law society.
Related to John Russell RA, a leading portrait painter of his day, Arthur was also a Sheriff of York. West Garth continued to be a desirable property in the 1930s lived in by Edmund Birks, also a Sheriff of York and magistrate of the North Riding at that time. The house was later bought in 1946 by a Sheffield philanthropist, Godfrey Walker and his wife, and dedicated by the Archibishop of York, as a home for ‘waifs and strays’. Following a fundraising appeal in 1967, led by the then Archbishop of York Donald Coggan, it became a nursery and was purchased by Marstons.
West Garth has been attributed by local heritage experts to celebrated York architect Walter Green Penty, whose firm Penty & Penty designed Elmbank on The Mount and Tudoresque Aldersyde on Tadcaster Road, as well as buildings in Hampstead Garden Suburbs.
Both of these significant York houses were commissioned for the Leetham family by Russell’s neighbour, Alfred Leetham, of Leetham’s Hungate Flour Mills, also designed by Penty and now demolished. The Penty and Leetham family were linked by marriage, and Alfred’s home, Shelley House, also attributed to Penty, stood right next door to West Garth.
Residents refer to it as a ‘mirror-image’ and the pair were described by Pevsner in his Buildings of England as “two large 1880s gabled villas, tile-hung and half-timbered”. Shelley House was demolished in 2002. The Carlton Tavern is now the last example of this style of villa, and potentially of Penty’s work, on the main thoroughfare from The Mount to the western suburbs of York.
It is not just national and local heritage experts, from York Civic Trust, and York Conservation Trust, to the Victorian Society, SAVE Britain’s Heritage and the Council for British Archaeology, that think the Carlton should be saved. It’s part of the shared history of Acomb and Holgate. A campaign led by local residents is gathering objections to ensure this last example of ‘Tudoresque’ Victorian architecture survives for generations to come”.
Carlton Tavern
Planning officials are recommending that the Carlton Tavern pub on Acomb Road is demolished.
Papers published today in advance of the Planning committee taking place on 18th October reveal that officials believe that there is no planning reason why the proposal, to replace the building with a new care home, should not be approved.
The content of the papers will come as a blow to dozens of objectors to the plan. The objectors will, however, have an opportunity to register to speak at the meeting before Councillors determine the application.
Councillors are expected to visit the site on the day before the meeting takes place.
