News

King Street development ‘harmless’

Acting on behalf of Christ’s College, our appeal against the refusal of a scheme on Cambridge’s historic King Street has been upheld.

The appeal, which was upheld by PINS on 1 October, sees the successful conclusion of the project which will provide 64 student rooms with ground floor commercial on the site.

Cambridge City Council had refused the scheme on the basis of harm to the conservation area, a grade II listed former council building (‘The Todd Building’), now part of the college, and the setting of a street of grade II listed terraced houses.

The Cambridge Heritage & Townscape and Planning teams argued that the proposed development would enhance the conservation area by restoring lost features of the retained buildings and by replacing a poor quality building with an appropriately designed new structure. Despite the council’s suggestions that the building to be demolished was a positive asset, the Inspector fully agreed with our case and felt that the development ‘would at least preserve, and in some cases enhance the character and appearance of the conservation area’.

The Inspector similarly found no harm to the setting of the terraced houses or caused by the physical works to the Todd Building, and again agreed with us that the setting of the latter was improved by the proposed development. As he found no harm, the Inspector felt no need to evaluate the numerous wider benefits which we had identified as resulting from the scheme.

This successful appeal is timely ahead of our forthcoming heritage seminar on 14 October, where we will consider assessing harm to heritage significance in conservation areas. We will be joined by speakers from 39 Essex Chambers and will draw on our experience of cases where the need to assess the impact of developments on the character and appearance of conservation areas has been key.

For more information please contact Jon Burgess, Jenny Page or Jenni Mason.

7 October 2019

Image courtesy of BGS Architects