The Oakwood Group assembled this site comprising a mixture of commercial premises with residential upper floors on a subject to planning permission basis.
The site had the benefit of planning permission won at appeal for 48 apartments and 600m2 of flexible use commercial space; albeit the scheme had been planned for open market sale and the accommodation fell some way short of funding requirements for an affordable housing scheme. The commercial space was ill-conceived and suffered from poor servicing arrangements and parking provision making it unattractive to prospective tenants.
Our proposal sought to make use of the extant permission through modification of the dwellings to provide improved space standards and we secured an end user for the commercial space with whom a bespoke design was prepared to ensure maximum value for the unit was achieved. A 25 year Lease was negotiated to secure the commercial end user, Kids Unlimited, one of the UK’s largest Children’s Day Nursery operators.
Pre-application discussions with the Council were positive and the scheme was recommended for approval by professional officers only to be refused by the Development Control Committee. Some tweaks were made to overcome the council’s concerns and permission was granted by Members at the second attempt.
We worked in partnership with one of LB Sutton’s Housing Association Partners, Metropolitan Housing Trust, to deliver 44 residential apartments above the D1 commercial space.
The building is being constructed using a reinforced concrete frame with facing brick, render, and ceramic rainscreen clad elevations which enhance the existing street scene and aesthetics of the existing site.
The development lies on the outskirts of Sutton Town Centre which offers extensive shopping and recreational facilities. In addition, the immediate vicinity provides local shops and schools as well as an abundance of public transport facilities, bus and train services.