Work has started on the development of a former garage site in Westbrook that has lain empty for almost 20 years.
A digger has been spotted clearing the site at the former Jenners Garages Ltd plot next door to Tesco in Canterbury Road and a construction management plan has been submitted to Thanet council.
In 2020 permission was given for development of a block of 18 flats with underground parking.
The proposal for the part 4-storey, part 5-storey building, with car access from Westbrook Gardens, was submitted by Sapphire Developments Kent Ltd. The plans have since undergone some modifications.
Guy Hollaway architects produced design plans for the build. The firm has previously drawn up plans for Fort Road Hotel, the multi-coloured 120-bed hotel proposed for Hosers Corner, a 60-bed ‘destination’ hotel and restaurant with multi-coloured shutters on the seafront at the Rendezvous site by Turner Contemporary which did not come to fruition and designs for Project MotorHouse proposals for the West Cliff Hall in Ramsgate which has since been sold to a private buyer.
The site, on the corner of Westbrook Gardens and Canterbury Road. was previously Westonville Garage, under Alfa Romeo dealership Jenners Garage Ltd. It had also been used as a Lada dealership and a Kwik Fit garage but has been unused and overgrown for the last 20 years, with hoarding enclosing the site.
Renewed permission for 15 two-bed flats and 3 one-bed flats was approved in March 2022. This was because of a 23 month lapse between the original approval and the signing of the legal agreement. The development will provide 30% affordable housing.
There is currently an application for the Construction Management Plan waiting for a decision.
The application is linked to an allocated housing site in Cliftonville at the former St Georges Hotel in Eastern Esplanade, which has planning permission for 87 flats. A legal agreement for the St Georges site says the Canterbury Road application would serve as the off-site affordable housing provision for that development.
Good luck to them, having balconies right up to that busy road.
Why would you care if you don’t intend on moving into them?
If someone chooses to live there, one assumes their preference is a balcony next to a main road.
Why do you care about their parking if you don’t intend to live there?
I don’t care at all about their parking, nor have I suggested I do.
You had a right hissy fit when I suggested that cars aren’t essential for people living in these flats.
If I had a “hissy fit”, which I did not, it was at your ignorance and stupidity, rather than the development of these apartments and their parking arrangements. Your assumption that the world should be according to Peter is ludicrous
You’re very aggressive, just like a lot of people who spend too much time cooped up in cars.
On yer bike, James!
Will this project include parking for the flats, not like the one’s above tesco which should have had parking but tesco got away with it.
87 flats at the St George’s site? Seems rather a lot!
i didnt realise there are still areas named after that old crook cyril hoser ?
The social meeting place for flocks of sparrows for decades. The sound of them singing and chattering no longer. Less places for our wild birds to congregate but that’s okay as long as it’s more places for humans the superior intelligence !!
Give over! It’s brownfield sites or farmland, you choose!
Besides which, whilst I accept that birds do nest in there and the sound is delightful, the place has been a dump for 20+ years, dragging down the otherwise respectable Westbrook with it. Much better to see it put to use and looking smart. As for the architectural merits of the design, it literally makes no difference. What is proposed is better than what we’ve been saddled with for 20 years. Next…
Brown field site for once. 👍
15 x 2 bed flats, 3 x 1 bed flats = how many cars? And what about visitors? How many car spaces will there be in the underground car park? I doubt sufficient for the number of cars there will be and so the surrounding roads, which are already busy, will be even worse.
Any plans for electric vehicle charging? Not that I would want a flat above an underground car park with EV charging with the problem of combustion.
Yes, all brownfield sites should be developed, but with sufficient parking for the number of properties.
Y
What is this obsession with car spaces? It is a 5 minute stroll from the train station, yards from a bus stop and round the corner from the Viking Coastal Cycling Trail. Cars aren’t essential for such a location. If there’s not enough spaces… tough, live somewhere else.
What an idiotic statement from someone who clearly doesn’t live in 2024 like the rest of us.
I own my home in Birchington and am a Thanet-lifer, my partner and I both work full-time and, to earn the kind of income required to own a decent property for our family, we have no choice but to travel outside of Thanet to our respective places of employment. Neither of these places is even remotely close to/convenient to get to by public transport. A train, bicycle or stout pair of walking boots would not help. This is reality for a great many people wanting to own a home, so please stop being such an idealistic ninny.
Which is, one suspects, why you’ve chosen somewhere to live where you can park your car.
Fact is, I – who also lives in Birchington, have done a variety of different jobs, and holiday all over the UK and beyond – gets by perfectly well without one, and always have done.
So please stop assuming that everyone is the same as you, and that a car is essential to all. It just isn’t sustainable to ensure that every person – in every house, flat and apartment – has a parking area.
Paris has undergone a big change in recent years, with many parking areas scrapped – and improved public transport and cycling links replacing them. Time we did the same here.
You use Paris, a capital city, as a false comparison with an area of the UK which is hugely disjointed. The reality for the vast majority of those wishing to own a home is they will need a vehicle. You may not like that, but that is entirely irrelevant.
You’ve never even passed your driving test, let alone owned a car have you DFL Pete.
No wonder you claim to walk so much eh? It’s a necessity, not a choice
Never failed a driving test either… and my better wife owns a car. We like to keep fit (unlike you local fatties), and generally enjoy relaxing on trains and buses.
“Better wife”? My better half, my wife!
5 minute stroll ? Would love to see you do it in 5minutes !
wish I could get a parking space outside my house but most of neighbours have 3 plus cars I can’t even get a space for family to park outside its ridiculous I’m disabled and struggle to walk I have to get taxis from A to B all the time
Some people are just greedy and thoughtless.
To those saying we need more parking and that Paris is an exception there are many places now in the U.K. where people don’t bother buying a car because the combination of buses, trains and Uber/BOLT means a car is more of an inconvenient expense than using a combination of transport methods.
There are many cities globally now where car clubs enable access to a decent vehicle when needed without the expense of a car sitting idle for days.
Got to love local architect making the building taller than the surrounding houses. That corner will house who Mr Holloway.. Suspect unaffordable of course is the norm. 15 flats Mr Holloway is a tight squeeze and views overlooking pretty much a dump
If a citizen wishes to own a car it is their RIGHT. It is the government’s duty to enact the wishes of the people to enable that right. It is what they were voted in for.
Sadly, we are governed by a metropolitan elite who will, if allowed, force their often misguided (and badly advised) bigotry upon us. They use fake data and bad science to support their so called green agenda.
If I want to see the end to car ownership I would vote green (wouldn’t I?)
If the UK was to go fully net zero 1. we would be bankrupt and living in the dark ages again and 2. it would affect less that 1% of the global environment.
You don’t like cars? F.O. to Sark.
I don’t want to see an end to car ownership (my other half owns one, not that we use it much). But it just isn’t viable to expect parking spaces for everyone in flats and apartments.
And as for “net zero” bollox, I care far more about the obesity and health crisis.
I don’t like cars, but I’m not going to move to Sark or anywhere else just because I don’t have a car.
You don’t like cars? I love ’em, or at least those made prior to the ’70s (modern cars are soulless boxes). I’ve been half-considering for years buying an old Ford Anglia and learning to drive. Maybe I will one day.
Anglia? My first car.
I changed the engine at the side of the road once.
Old Fords were great! My dad never had an Anglia, but he did have a wonderful Mk 4 Zodiac with column gear change and bench front seat, as well as all the different Cortinas.