WANSTEAD: Victorian coach house garage plans passed (From East London and West Essex Guardian Series)

WANSTEAD: Victorian coach house garage plans passed

4:50pm Wednesday 22nd June 2011 in Your Local Areas By Joe Curtis

AN HISTORIC coach house will be turned into a garage after the controversial plan was passed at a meeting last night.

The unpopular proposals - to retain the facade of the Victorian coach house, on Tavistock Road, Wanstead, only to turn the inside into a garage and storage room, were voted through at last night’s (June 21) Regional Planning West Committee meeting.

The plans formed part of developer Park Hill Homes Ltd’s design to demolish a bungalow on Cleveland Road to build four three bedroom semi-detached houses.

Architect Lawrence Bass, 59, whose mother Doris lives next to the coach house, said: “It’s a disappointing decision.”

“They had a real opportunity to do something really imaginative there but they’ve not borthered with it.”

“We are losing a really great historic part of the street.”

He added that the coach house’s interior could have been used as a workshop or studio, retaining original parts of the building.

The decision is a huge blow to residents determined to keep the coach house intact in its entirety, after briefly tasting success when council officers deferred a plan to demolish the building on May 23 after they declared the coach house was “of possible interest”.

But the building is neither listed nor protected, meaning that Park Hill Homes can use the interior as they wish.

Jane Whitworth, 44, of Cleveland Road, said: "It will be a great shame to see the coach house used like that."

"The area is also overpopulated, and creating so many new homes will mean an increase in parking pressures - we don’t want that.”

But Roger Brown, manager of Park Hill Homes, moved to reassure residents of the design.

He said: “"We will have off-street parking for each property to reduce the influx of cars you see when people travel each day to the nearby Tube station."

"The coach house is now being retained and refurbished. What's important is we are keeping the facade of the building untouched."

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