26 homes plan for Southill Weymouth is turned down

Building work stalled on the site, which remains boarded up, shortly after the former residential care home was demolished in 2022.

Bournemouth Churches Housing Association applied for a re-worked 26 home development this spring with Dorset building company, C G Fry and Son, lined up to complete the project.

Dorset Council has now rejected that application for the 0.4 hectare Poplar Close site, adjacent to the Southill shopping centre.

It says a block of flats would be overbearing, some homes are very small and one unit was said to have “a dark, cramped and uninviting rear garden, with a poor outlook.”

There was also criticism of a lack of legal agreement to secure a promise of 100 per cent affordable homes on the site and a lack of details over how surface and groundwater flooding would be dealt with.

READ: Plans for 26 homes at stalled Weymouth development unveiled

The proposal was for five fewer homes than the original planning consent for 31 homes.

The 26-home scheme proposed ten 1-bed properties; eight 2-bed; three-bed for social, affordable or intermediate rent and one 2-bed and four 3-bed homes classed as ‘affordable home ownership.’ In the new planning application an agent admits that the site is an eyesore: “Coupled with the Heras fencing and hoarding which has been erected to prevent access, the site is visually unattractive and detracts from the predominantly residential setting in which it is located.”

The 26 home scheme for the Marchesi House site, Southill which Dorset Council has rejected (Image: Supplied) The agent says having fewer homes on the site makes the development more attractive and sympathetic to the surrounding area.

Said the planning agent: “The dwellings now proposed are more typically wider fronted and sit more comfortably in the local setting. Whilst some terraces are proposed, clusters of semi-detached dwellings offer variety to scheme.”

Among the changes is a reduction in the number of flats from thirteen to six, the two blocks of flats previously approved in the northeast and northwest corners of the site being removed and replaced with a single block of six flats near the southern boundary.

READ: New hope for stalled affordable homes scheme in Weymouth

Weymouth Town Council raised no objections to the changed plan but some Dorset Council officers had concerns: Public Health said eight of the units would fall short of national space standards with a lack of room to dry clothes; while a Flood Risk officer objected because of a lack of detail to deal with known surface and groundwater flood risks in the area. Dorset Police were concerned about the potential of the design for anti-social behaviour and graffiti.

Other concerns were the size and scale of the block of flats to the south east of the site which an officer said would be twice the height of the existing ‘already dominant’ Active Mobility building alongside.

Dorset Council housing officers said there was also concern about how the 100% affordable units would be achieved, with no legal agreement in place, with the council only able to insist on a maximum provision of 35 per cent.

In the reasons for refusal one of the main concerns related to potential flooding: “The submitted drainage details conclude that soakaways would be suitable, but none are proposed… the proposed runoff rate is inappropriate; and no confirmation of attenuation volumes has been supplied. There is thus no certainty that the site can be adequately drained.”

Other reasons to reject the proposals include a lack of legal agreement over the level of affordable homes; the scale of the block of flats to the south east corner, described as a “particularly incongruous and dominant feature”; and the design of one unit which was labelled  as having  a “dark, cramped and uninviting rear garden, with a poor outlook” with Units 1-4 said to have a “poor living environment” and nowhere to dry washing.