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18/00583/B Page 1 of 5
PLANNING OFFICER REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Application No. : 18/00583/B Applicant : Dr Jeffrey Lunt Proposal : Conversion of ground floor accommodation to private doctors surgery, including creation of off street parking area to rear Site Address : 5 Brunswick Road Douglas Isle Of Man IM2 3LH
Planning Officer: Mr Owen Gore Photo Taken :
Site Visit :
Expected Decision Level : Officer Delegation
Recommendation
Recommended Decision:
Permitted Date of Recommendation: 13.09.2018 __
Conditions and Notes for Approval
C : Conditions for approval N : Notes attached to conditions
C 1. The development hereby approved shall be begun before the expiration of four years from the date of this decision notice.
Reason: To comply with article 14 of the Town and Country Planning (Development Procedure) (No2) Order 2013 and to avoid the accumulation of unimplemented planning approvals.
C 2. The doctor's surgery/aesthetic clinic use, hereby approved, shall only be open for use by clients/customers, between the hours of 9:00 and 17:00 Monday to Saturday. No customers shall be allowed onsite outside of these hours or at any time on Sundays or Bank holidays.
Reason: In the interests of the amenity of neighbouring residents in accordance with General Policy 2, parts g, h & i of the Isle of Man Strategic Plan 2016.
C 3. Notwithstanding the provisions of the Town and Country Planning (Permitted Development) Order 2012 (or any Order revoking and/or re-enacting that Order with or without modification) the lounge shall only be used as a doctor's surgery/aesthetic clinic use.
Reason: To ensure proper control of the development and to avoid any future undesirable uses being carried out on the site in the interest of the amenity of the neighbouring properties in accordance with General Policy 2, parts g, h & i of the Isle of Man Strategic Plan 2016.
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Plans/Drawings/Information;
This Planning permission relates to the following plans and documents: -
Drawing No.1 - Plan as Existing Drawing No.2 - Plan as Proposed Drawing No.3 - Location Plan Drawing No.4 - Block Plan Letter from Applicant dated 20 May 2018 Date-stamped as having been received 1 June 2018
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Interested Person Status - Additional Persons
None __
Officer’s Report
THE SITE 1.1 The site is the curtilage of an existing property, 5, Brunswick Road, which sits on the corner of Brunswick Road and a lane which stretches from Woodbourne Road through to Alexander Drive. The site is within the Selbourne Drive Conservation Area.
1.2 The property has two storeys of accommodation; the ground floor has previously been used as a Newsagents (Class 1) accommodation and associated storage/shop office and the first floor being used as a single dwelling. However A previous application granted planning permission for the additional of the shop (Class 1) as living accommodation.
1.3 Currently the property has a pair of doors which give access from the rear yard to the side lane which runs along the southern wall of the property.
THE PROPOSAL 2.1 The application seeks approval for the creation of parking to rear yard and use of ground floor as a private doctor's surgery. The proposed use would operate five days a week between 09:00 and 17:00 and visiting will be on an appointment basis only. The accommodation above the surgery would be occupied by the practice manager.
2.2 The proposal includes the creation of a new vehicle access with shutter doors to the rear lane. This lane also serves a number of garages and rear access to properties along Brunswick Road.
PLANNING POLICY 3.1 The site lies within an area designated on the Douglas Local Plan of 1998 as Predominantly Residential. General Policy 2 applies to proposals that are in accordance with the land-use zoning and states that development will normally be permitted where it: -
(b) respects the site and surroundings in terms of the siting, layout, scale, form, design and landscaping of buildings and the spaces around them; (c) does not affect adversely the character of the surrounding landscape or townscape; (g) does not affect adversely the amenity of local residents or the character of the locality;
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(h) provides satisfactory amenity standards in itself, including where appropriate safe and convenient access for all highway users, together with adequate parking, servicing and manoeuvring space; (i) does not have an unacceptable effect on road safety or traffic flows on the local highways;
3.2 Paragraph 10.5 - 'Civic and Community Facilities' provide some guidance on the assessment of proposals such as this stating that 'Community facilities are those services or facilities that provide for the needs of the Island population. As such, they should be appropriate to the needs of the Island's population and be located as to be easily accessible. Community facilities include...medical facilities...'.
3.3 Paragraph 10.5.2 states: 'It is not for the Strategic Plan to address or determine the needs for community facilities, but to address the land use issues arising from such proposals...Proposals for such uses will therefore be assessed against general criteria based policies'.
3.4 Environment Policy 35 states: Within Conservation Areas, the Department will permit only development which would preserve or enhance the character or appearance of the Area, and will ensure that the special features contributing to the character and quality are protected against inappropriate development.
PLANNING HISTORY 4.1 The previous planning permission ref: 17/00820/B for the 'creation of parking to rear yard and additional use of ground floor shop (Class 1) as living accommodation' is considered to be specifically material in the assessment of the current application.
REPRESENTATIONS Copies of representations received can be viewed on the government's website. This report contains summaries only.
'As the ground floor has previously been used as a shop, which would require staff and customer parking, without any site parking provided, it could be argued that the proposed surgery could generate a similar parking demand. The site parking demand from customers could be limited by providing a gap of at least 15 minutes between appointments which would only require 1 customer parking space, leaving 1 space for staff which is considered acceptable. The highway and parking impact of the proposal would therefore be afforded highway support subject to this planning condition.
5.2 Douglas Borough Council have commented on this application and stated that they do not object in the letter dated 13 July 2018.
5.3 The Police Architectural liaison officer has been consulted on this proposal; however they have declined to comment.
ASSESSMENT Previous application 6.1 Firstly, it is noted that the property is likely to have been originally built and used as a single dwelling, which is also the general characteristics of the use of the neighbouring properties within the same terrace. However, historically the ground floor of the property has been converted and an enlarged shop front has been installed to provide separate access and additional floor space with large glazed windows for a shop (Newsagent's).
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6.2 The submitted drawings refer to the previous application and note the potential for either use as a shop or as living accommodation; however it doesn't indicate if the permission has been implemented. It is therefore considered that the proposal is still a Class 1 shop. It was noted in the previous application that in terms the use of the ground floor as either being used as a shop or as living accommodation there are no concerns. Concern would only arise if there was a mix of the tow uses i.e. shop and living accommodation occurring at ground floor level.
Principle 6.3 The proposal shows the entire ground floor as for use as a doctor's surgery and the proposal does not request a mixed or an 'either/or' use. The loss of the shop is considered not to be detrimental to the area as there are other shops and services available on Woodbourne Road to the south east and Wessex Garage to the west. The principle for the change of use is acceptable, subject to the consideration below.
Character and appearance 6.3 The removal of part of the rear stone painted render boundary wall and replaced with a shutter doors is acceptable. The area to the rear of the application site is characterised mainly with garage openings and the area is not an important aspect to the character and quality of the Conservation Area, that being the frontage of the properties and the main street scenes.
Impact to neighbouring residents 6.4 In terms of neighbour impacts, due to the nature of the business, with only a single client being present at a time and no noisy activities being carried out, it is considered unlikely that there will be significant impact to the neighbouring properties. The coming and going of vehicles to the property will be minimal and will replace those of the existing shop. It is considered unlikely that the business would be significantly more disruptive than the existing use.
Parking and Highways 6.5 The highways officer has reviewed this proposal and does not object, subject to conditions. The suggested condition would require limiting the number of customers/patients on-site and requiring at least 15 minutes between appointments. However the existing shop use can be visited by any number of customers without restriction and in order for a condition regarding the staggering of appointment times to be enforceable an appointment book or log would be required; due to the potential sensitive nature of appointments, this is considered not to be reasonable in this instance. It is within the users interest to take appointments and to stagger these to allow time between and avoid long waiting times.
CONCLUSION 7.1 The proposal would not unacceptably harm the characteristics of the existing building or the character of its surroundings and would not result in a significant adverse impact upon the living conditions of neighbouring residents, subject to controls. There an under provision for on-site parking; however, subject to conditions, there would be no increase in staff parking demand for the development as the applicant already resides at the site; customers would be catered for one at a time and staggered to avoid an overlap.
INTERESTED PERSON STATUS
8.1 By virtue of the Town and Country Planning (Development Procedure) (No 2) Order 2013 Article 6(4), the following persons are automatically interested persons: (a) The applicant, or if there is one, the applicant's agent; (b) The owner and the occupier of any land that is the subject of the application or any other person in whose interest the land becomes vested; (c) Any Government Department that has made written submissions relating to planning considerations with respect to the application that the Department considers material
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(d) Highway Services Division of Department of Infrastructure and (e) The local authority in whose district the land the subject of the application is situated.
8.2 The decision maker must determine: o whether any other comments from Government Departments (other than the Department of Infrastructure Highway Services Division) are material; and o whether there are other persons to those listed in Article 6(4) who should be given Interested Person Status. __
I can confirm that this decision has been made by the Head of Development Management in accordance with the authority afforded to that Officer by the appropriate DEFA Delegation.
Decision Made : Permitted Date : 14.09.2018
Determining officer
Signed : S BUTLER
Stephen Butler
Head of Development Management
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