Outline planning permission is being sought to build a 4 story block of flat in the car park between 7 and 13 Warwick Park. WPARA have objected and listed below is our comment. Feel free to make your individual comments closing date is 25th February. Full details can be found here Outline (Landscaping and Scale reserved) – Construction of 7 No. residential units. – Car Parking Spaces Between 7 And 13 Warwick Park Royal Tunbridge Wells Kent.
WPARA’s Objection.
Comment: This is filed on behalf of Neil Williams, Chairman of Warwick Park Area Residents
Association who is currently out of the country. I am the Streetscape Representative for WPARA. I
would be grateful for a receipt from the Planning Department as we will publish our objection on
our website for residents to view. Many thanks.
25/00189/OUT | Outline (Landscaping and Scale reserved) – Construction of 7 No. residential
units. | Car Parking Spaces Between 7 And 13 Warwick Park TW
This objection to Planning Application 25/00189/OUT is from the Warwick Park Area Residents
Association. We represent around 120 property owners in Warwick Park and the roads leading off
from it. We are a highly active Residents Association with good working relationships with our local
MP, TWBC Councillors and KCC. We have a website, wpara.co.uk , and regular residents’ emails.
We strongly object to this development for several reasons:
Significant parking issues would arise.
The combination of a significant number of individual dwellings and displacement of existing
commercial parking will have a disproportionate effect on the access to properties along Warwick
Park, where there are currently major parking issues.
The parking in the immediate vicinity is Zone A, open to both residents and businesses. The
footprint of the building is removing approximately 8 commercial parking spaces which are
currently used by businesses, including in the Pantiles. Then the proposed development has 7
residents’ parking spaces. This makes a total of 15 lost parking spaces. Plus 6 of the 7 flats have
two bedrooms. This may add another 3 or 4 additional cars which will have to be parked on the
street. Then there are the visitors’ and tradespersons’ vehicles to park somewhere, in total adding,
say, to a requirement to accommodate 20-25 additional vehicles on a busy and congested road,
near a main junction and next to a nursery.
An additional important societal consideration for this area in particular, is that it has a very high
proportion of retired residents. For them, parking several hundred metres from their house is not a
practical option.
It is completely out of character in this Conservation Area, being brutalist architecture, intrusive
and would be the only 4-storey building in the area.
Over-loading of the Wastewater capacity.
The proposed development involves adding 7 bathrooms, 7 washing machines, 7 dishwashers,
etc – far more waste water than a single dwelling, and the proposed development would tip the
balance towards a near-constant effluence of foul water and surface water flooding – all ending up
in the Pantiles.
It has been recognised by TWBC (and by Southern Water and KCC) for well over 10 years that
major investment in the water management infrastructure in the area is necessary to alleviate the
current unacceptable situation, and certainly before any future development.
The water disposal system for the built environment is based on combined sewers for mixed
surface and foul water which have no spare capacity and which overflow currently when there is
heavy rainfall. The natural run-off accumulates in the Grom stream, restricted by culverts, which
also floods when there is significant precipitation.
In the past year, there has been flooding on Roedean, Warwick Park and Rodmell roads, into
many gardens and properties, and, most recently, a major house flood in Blatchington Road.
There needs to be a moratorium on any further development in the area until the infrastructure has
been upgraded and the current problems resolved.
Specifically, the proposed development Application does not include the necessary substantive
infrastructure necessary to alleviate the problems it would cause.
For all these reasons, Planning Permission for this Application should be refused.
Neil Williams (Chairman, Warwick Park Area Residents’ Association
