Housing plans for land on redundant Princess Marina Hospital site backed despite concerns
PLANS for a major housing development on the outskirts of Northampton have been backed by councillors, despite concerns about parking in the area.
The Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust was given planning permission to redevelop the Princess Marina site off Weedon Road in 2009. But because of delays in the closure of buildings on the site, the three-year time-limit to redevelop the site is about to run out.
Because of the delay, the trust has applied for an extension to the time-limit, and last night, Northampton Borough council’s planning committee supported the move.
The decision came despite hearing concerns that plans to build 550 new houses and 86,000-sq ft of retail space on the hospital site would add to existing problems in the St Crispin area.
Councillor Alan Bottwood (Con, Upton) told the planning committee parking was already a real problem around the area, particularly near St Luke’s School.
He said: “It needs to be looked at very closely to see what’s going to be done about parking.
“If it’s not, the problems we’ve got now will only get worse.”
He was backed by planning committee member Councillor Brian Oldham (Con, West Hunsbury), who also expressed fears about parking.
He said: “This has been a problem for years and it will be a massive problem with more houses coming.”
Despite the concerns, the planning committee voted to support the plans.
Their views will now be passed onto the West Northamptonshire Development corporation (WNDC) who will make a final decision on whether the time-limit for the development to take place should be extended.
If the WNDC does agree to back the extension of the time-scale, more detailed plans for the redevelopment of the Princess Marina site would then be drawn up by the NHS trust.
They would show exactly where the 550 houses would be built and where the commercial developments would be.
Both the WNDC and the borough council would then decide if those plans should go ahead.
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Thursday 23 February 2012
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pratchett
Wednesday, July 20, 2011 at 08:36 PMtotally agree its a disgusting mess and needs dealing with before the petty vandalism turns into something worse,i spoke to someone at wndc and they said it could be up to three years before it gets built on and the whole site is already in a shocking state.
The cynic
Wednesday, July 20, 2011 at 01:20 PMThe Princess Marina site has been transformed from a green and pleasant area to a vandalised, graffiti covered mess in the space of a year. The criminal community are daily denuding its abandonded buildings of all the lead and copper, the local youth have taken to using the buildings especially in Kent Road to express their artistic prowess and stone throwing abilities. Despite the fact no one welcomes such a sizeable development it has to be an improvement on its current sorry state. So how long will this process take? Given the current economic climate and fate of builders I suspect the Healthcare Trust will be reapplying to extend planning permission in another 3 years time!
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