More student homes agreed despite local opposition

Permission was granted despite 23 objections from residents over the ‘studentification’ of the Lewes Road and Coombe Road area, which already has a heavy student population.

The site is also close to the recently agreed Preston Barracks scheme, which will include 1,338 student rooms.

Objectors claimed ‘families are being driven out of the area’, because they ‘no longer wish to stay and continue to live in a purpose built student community’.

They also said: “The Coombe Road area is losing its identity and turning into a campus.”

However, an officer’s report for the committee said the development accords with planning policies, designed to increase purpose-built student accommodation and reduce pressure on family housing, which can become HMOs (houses in multiple occupation).

At Wednesday’s planning committee, Cllr Tracey Hill said: “I have heard residents’ concerns about this development and the general scale of change in this area in terms of the quantity of purpose-built student housing in that looks like its coming online.

“But on balance, as a city we are chronically short of purpose-built student housing.

“The number of HMOs that are student houses probably isn’t going to reduce as a result of something like but future demand should be lessened and alleviated.”

As well as the pub, three terraced houses, a convenience store and an old car sales building will make way for the student housing block at the Pelham Terrace, Lewes Road.

The site is opposite B&Q, and is just south of the University of Brighton’s Mithras House in Moulsecoomb.

With 189 student rooms, and rising in places to nine storeys, the new building is also set to include five top-floor flats, landscaped roof terraces and cycle storage.

Spaces for community use have been allocated on the ground and first floors, to mitigate the loss of The Lectern pub, which is listed as an asset of community value.

Raising concerns about the community space, Cllr Penny Gilbey said: “It says it will be a public facility and it will serve the same function as a public house did previously, but the charges, £10 an hour and £30 an hour for a double room, it seems to me the community won’t have use of it, they will be absolutely paying for it. I don’t know how community groups are going to afford to use that every day.”

A planning officer explained that a large area of the ground floor space will be a cafe open to the public.

He said: “People that want to come in for an informal meeting in the same way they did at the pub can do in that cafe space.”

Developer CKC Properties Limited is set to contribute £80,000 towards improving local sustainable transport and £240,000 for local open spaces and indoor sport, as well as providing students living in the halls with free bus passes and Bikeshare membership.

Planning committee chairman Cllr Julie Cattell said: “The universities are a major industry for the city and local planning policies recognise that. Purpose-built accommodation means there is less pressure to convert homes into shared houses for students. And it makes sense to have this accommodation near key university facilities.”