A controversial student housing scheme is recommended for approval when it goes before the planning committee next month.
Watkin Jones wants to build the 77-bed complex on land currently used as a car park off Hunter Street at the back of historic properties in King Street in Chester city centre.
Comprising three interlinked blocks, the scheme has three fewer apartments than originally envisaged to enable the height of the corner building to be reduced by one storey.
But concerns remain.
Cheshire West and Chester Council leader and ward member Cllr Samantha Dixon (Lab, Chester City) is on a collision course with her own officers as she believes the application should be refused.
She has ‘called in’ the scheme for a committee decision on Tuesday April 5 as she feels it is contrary to the Local Plan.
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There have been 60 objections including comments the ‘scale and massing’ is too great, that student housing is leading to an imbalance in the local population with existing concerns around anti-social behaviour plus worries over car parking.
Chester Civic Trust has objected saying the site is ‘out-of-scale, unattractive, featureless and does not respect the grain of the city’.
King Street residents, who live in Georgian and Victorian properties, already feel vulnerable to an increase in the number of private sector landlords seeking student tenants.
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This led CWaC to adopt a policy aimed at curbing the number of houses in multiple occupancy (HMOs) in their neighbourhood which comes in effect this May.
And the Hunter Street proposal follows work starting on delivering almost 370 student beds at nearby Telford’s Warehouse with a 550-bed student scheme in the pipeline on the Linenhall car park.
But developers behind the latest scheme, which would front the St Martin’s Way ring road, argue the student complex will ‘reduce pressure on the supply of private rented housing (typically uncontrolled, unmanaged housing in multiple occupation) in Chester'.
Serving both the University of Chester and the University of Law, it would comprise en suite studio bedrooms each equipped with kitchen, dining and living facilities. Studios are typically occupied by later year students, post-graduates and international students.
There would be a common room, laundrette, cycle parking and an office for on-site management. All students would sign a lease that commits them to acting in ‘proper and respectful manner’ otherwise they are asked to leave.
Planning officer Judith Gordon wrote in a report to councillors that ‘any negative impacts identified could be overcome by the imposition of appropriately worded planning conditions’. She says the scheme is in accordance with the Local Plan and ‘would be beneficial to the local area in a number of ways’.
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Council leader Cllr Dixon previously backed King Street residents in supporting action aimed at protecting the character of their area when she said: “This particular area is right on the cusp of tipping from an area that’s ordinary residential into a typical student residential area so timing is very germane for this to happen now.”
