Information site produced by neighbours of the Lymm hotel
The captions to the above plans are those attached by the developers
The Retirement Apartments
The number of apartments is reduced from 52 to 45 since the last application and the number of parking places is increased from 37 to 47.
There are design changes that add more character "features". The building is less intrusive to no 11. but there are also significant four storey elements ( the developers would call these 3.5 storeys) with more exacavation - see picture lower down the page. There is no precedent anywhere in Lymm for four floors.
One critical aspect of the application is the developers' argument that these apartments should be categorised as "C2.. assisted living". This reduced the parking requirement to one place for every two apartments.C2 assisted living is argued on the basis that one resident for each apartment should need, sign up for and pay for at least two hours of care per week. ( minimum age for occupants is 55) The council did not accept this last time and suggested at least one parking place per apartment plus visitor places plus electric charging points plus disabled places. If the council stick to their case then the parking falls short.
how it looks today ...
The first application- below- that got turned down because ...
The new plan .
A closer look at the differences
The second picture below has the outline of the first application super-imposed. It shows a general slight reduction in roof height but with an increase in one central area. the buildings themselves are taller in many parts due to significant extra excavation to allow for creation of a fourth level. There are no existing 4 storey developments anywhere in the area.
To appreciate the overall scale of the building and to decide if it is appropriate compare it in the picture above to the large Victorian villa 11 Whitbarrow Road.
There have been a number of changes to the facade aimed at making the building more compatible to the neighbourhood.
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.The officer's recommendation
Below is a quote from some guidance to the developer from the council's officer after last time's refusal.
...an alternative I would strongly favour, would be to design the retirement apartments to resemble a line of dwellings, of differing sizes and shapes, with
subtle variety in appearance and design between them. In my view there should be more variety to the front building line- in order to visually break up and relieve its bulk- especially where it rises with levels to the south/south east along Whitbarrow Road.”
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Have they achieved their aim. compare the before and after below. It's subjective. What do you think ?
One argument could be that the way to break up the bulk is to actually break them into more than one building rather than just try and create the illusion
Parking
The council were quite clear last time that the development needed one dedicated parking place per apartment plus three visitor spaces. That would make the requirement here to be 48 places. There are 47 - Two of these are disabled places and a further two are electric car charging points not included in the original application. Three visitor spaces seems very low and could easily result in on-street parking. This is problematic as parking places are likely to be reserved to apartment owners even when not occupied . Any parking on the road in front of the exisiting hotel reduces the road to a single carriageway. Some people have argued a strong case for double yellow lines in front of the hotel though this could of course thenpush on-street parking onto Brook Road or round the corner onto Statham Avenue which could well be experiencing significantly increased trafficdue to the nursery.