Gymnastics and parkour centre plan refused – planning roundup

Plans were submitted by Virtue Gymnastics to turn the vacant industrial building on 28 Portman Road into a leisure centre focused on indoor free running and gymnastics.

The site has been vacant for nearly four years and is close to other leisure facilities, including RedKangaroo Trampoline Park, TNT Gym and a dance studio.

READ MORE: Empty west Reading warehouse could be transformed into gymnastics and parkour centre

The plans received 41 letters of support and 14 objections from residents and businesses.

But the council said the loss of the industrial employment land in a core employment area would be contrary to planning policy.

The policy aims to retain floorspace “for the kinds of employment floorspace our economy needs”.

Planning officers said the plan “does not compliment the area” and the warehouse has not been vacant long enough to justify changing the use.

They also said the amount of car parking spaces proposed would be “some way short” of the council’s standards and what would be required to meet the number of people accessing the site.

In other planning news, the council has council approved an application to remove and replace potentially dangerous cladding from two blocks of flats.

The building which where dangerous cladding will be replaced

The current cladding at the Honister and Hewitt buildings on Chatham Square, 20-40 Alfred Street, will be removed and replaced with “suitable non-combustible cladding”.

Meanwhile, plans for 13 flats were rejected this week by the council for being “overdeveloped” and “harmful”.

READ MORE: ‘Total eyesore’ flats plan refused after more than a dozen neighbours raise concerns

More than 15 neighbours raised concerns about the plans.

Interesting new plans submitted to the council include 54 flats next to a pub in the town centre and a foot clinic.

Meanwhile, major plans to build hundreds of new homes at Reading Golf Club have been met with the highest number of objections the council has ever received.

An application sent to Reading Borough Council to build 257 homes at the site in Emmer Green has been met with 3,065 objections.

READ MORE: Homes plan at golf club attracts record backlash with more than 3,000 objections

A council spokesperson said they believe the response is “probably” the highest ever number of objections a local planning application has received and “certainly the highest in the past seven years”.

The application is expected to be heard by the council in June.

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