Spendlove offices to become housing
The majority of the office block at the Spendlove Centre is to be converted into flats.
A planning application lodged with West Oxfordshire District Council envisages that the whole of the first floor, and most of the ground floor, will become nine flats. The vets and dental practice will remain as they are.
The developers ("Kildrummy Charlbury Syndicate") and their agents (Allen Planning) are using a new law that allows offices to be converted into housing without the need for a full planning application. Instead, it qualifies as "Permitted Development" and can only be refused on transport, contamination or flooding grounds.
The law was introduced by the present Government in 2013 and seeks to ensure "a swift and responsive planning system... for securing sustainable development" and to "unblock" the planning system. (More details.) Kildrummy purchased the offices in June 2011.
The change would effectively remove the largest employment site in central Charlbury.
Richard Fairhurst · Fri 14 Mar 2014, 14:35 · Link