By Local Democracy Reporter Daniel Esso
Plans to flatten a factory in Ramsgate to make way for a new housing estate have been approved despite not including any affordable homes.
Owners of Ramsgate’s Flambeau Europlast on Manston Road want to demolish their plastics manufacturing plant before rolling out 118 homes.
Thanet District Council usually demands 30% of houses are affordable in large projects. Affordable housing provision is a keystone government tactic designed to help end the housing crisis, tackle homelessness and provide aspiring homeowners opportunities.
Yet controversially, Flambeau successfully argued including any in its 3.5 hectares acre site would make the scheme financially unviable.
Plans were originally approved to convert the site into a 120-house estate in 2017 however, permission has since expired. This prompted the firm to reapply earlier this year for outline permission for up to 118 homes.
The aim is to relocate the moulded thermoplastic products factory from Manston Road to one of the isle’s business parks, enabling the current building to be demolished to make way for the homes.
Thanet District Council’s (TDC) planning committee met on October 16 to make the final call, where planning officers recommended the project should be approved.
During the meeting, a planning chief said the current proposals have “a very similar layout” to the 2017 application”.
“In terms of the number of units, we do think that can be accommodated on site providing a successful and high-quality design,” he added.
“There is still about £2.2m that needs to be spent to demolish the site, clear it up and sort out various landscape factors, that all adds onto the costs,” the planning officer explained.
“Unfortunately this is one of the realities of developing brownfield sites.”
Common lizards were previously found on site, and as such the developers are proposing a new grassland habitat for them on the edge of the estate.
The firm will contribute £1.1 million to local services, including education and healthcare, with planning documents stressing the Flambeau’s need for a “financially viable transition to new premises”.
In the meeting, council leader Cllr Rick Everitt (Lab) said: “I do accept that based on the figures that have been provided, it’s very difficult for them to provide affordable housing on site as much as we would like it.
“Also we have to be cognisant of the fact that we have endlessly been told we should develop on brownfield sites, well here’s a brownfield site and there are challenges that come with that.”
“We should be welcoming building on a brownfield site,” added Cllr Rebecca Wing (Green). “It looks a great development, I am a bit upset there’s no social housing on there because obviously we have a desperate need for social housing but I understand the reasons why.”
Cllr Mike Garner (Green) added: “Zero affordable housing on the site itself is not a positive thing – it’s very negative.
“I think there’s a clash in that we want to build on brownfield sites but that costs more so we can’t get affordable housing on it.”
TDC’s planning committee voted unanimously to approve the plans.
The site currently houses the Flambeau Europlast office and warehouse building, operational yard and storage areas but is allocated in the Thanet Local Plan for 120 properties.
As an outline planning application, they will need to apply again to get permission for the specifics of house design and layout at the new estate.
Flambeau Europlast has been contacted for comment.
How easy will it be for these people to walk to shops or get buses? Or do they all have to rely on cars?
Ok, I take that back. I see it’s near a big Tesco.
Peter lol
Not sure if you are being funny but Tesco is about 100yrds away and a couple of bus stops along manston road
My question was genuine rather than sarcastic, as I didn’t know the answer. Then I did my own research.
Whilst good to see a brown field site being redeveloped the local road system will not I fear be a able to cope. One only has to attempt to travel from the Tesco’s site at Newington up to St Lawrence to notice the bottle neck where the road narrows. Then you have the addition of residents parking on this stretch. Yellow lines on both sides of the road will only push residents onto already crowded side roads which could lead to resident parking bays only.
–
The next controversial site will be the old gas works site in St Peters Broadstairs. Again another possible bottleneck area.
They don’t HAVE to own cars.
That site already has planning permission from a few years ago but that may be near expiring as developments have three years to commence work.
At least it’s a Brownfield site, just wish they’d STOP building on prime farming land. Somethings got to feed all these new mouths and I don’t fancy bugs or the soylant green solution .
be good to see it started and finished and has someone stayed its a brown field site too which is nice big tescos very close by
I’m not a big fan of Ramsgate (I prefer smaller towns/villages), but if I was I’d live there.
i wonder how big that envelope was ????
Oh seriously, those old tropes are so boring. Back up your accusations with evidence. All you are doing is undermining local democracy and local services.
How easy it is to walk all over the TDC Planners with demands of developing without the affordable housing element included. These officers always recommend accepting the developers proposals no matter what they tell them. This is wrong and needs to be righted. The Councillors should be ashamed of themselves for agreeing the stance on approval. There is over £million for local services that always disappears into the ether. They should have used that towards producing the essential affordable housing or towards TDC building social housing. This is really not good enough for Thanet that is being swamped with developments all over the place causing traffic jams with the extra rise in population here.
There is a contribution the affordable housing off site within the £1.1m. It is small but it is there. The money doesn’t “disappear into the ether”, it is tracked and reported publicly. Admittedly it can take a long while to come forward and TDC does not deliver many of the other services it goes towards (health, education, etc).
There is a viability study published online which sets out the viability calculation. It is independently commissioned to challenge the developer’s position. In this case the site is a functioning factory and the existing use value is the starting point for the developer profit calculation. The factory owner is relocating, securing local jobs, and obviously needs to pay for that.
We all want more affordable homes but we can’t prevent developments if it isn’t viable to provide them on site. The planning inspectorate would simply wave through an appeal if we did.
Did you bother to watch the planning committee meeting at which this was approved? Did you not hear the fact that it costs more to develop brownfield sites because of the land clearance and other factors, which makes them less profitable and therefore less able to provide affordable housing? Do you not realise that if you want affordable housing then it has to be built on farmland? Do you not realise that even if TDC refuses to allow housing to be built just because there is not enough so-called affordable housing then the Planning Inspectorate will just overrule the local council?
Did you notice that Councillors do not just accept what officers recommend. Did you not notice that the same planning committee turned down an application officers recommendeded for approval?
What I don’t understand is why the promised schools, doctors surgeries, play areas etc ( but not this development for some obscure reason as not making enough profit) are not built first? The council could easily put this into any contract so that if planning approval is granted no houses can be built beforehand. We hear to many times that these facilities are not built later because the developer are losing money
Its going to cost them. There’s a Roman Villa on that site.
View of Staner Court one side, noise from the railway line the other side and the potential for cargo planes low flying overhead.
Where do I sign up ?