Plans to turn town centre offices into dozens of flats have been approved at the fourth time of asking, following three refusals in just three months.
Tene Living and Business Environment SoanePoint submitted a joint planning application to convert the Soane Point Market Place offices into 93 flats after previous plans for 144 and 100 apartments were rejected.
Reading Borough Council (RBC) officers had raised concerns that occupiers of the flats would be impacted by noise from nearby commercial businesses.
In response, the developers adapted the proposals, reducing the number of homes by seven, to allow all flats facing the internal courtyard to have separate bedrooms and living rooms and allow tenants to open a window and use another room away from potential noise.
The developer has also relocated kitchen extraction units, carried out repair and maintenance work to a faulty air conditioning unit, and replaced a chiller unit.
New noise surveys were carried out, which have satisfied Reading Borough Council’s (RBC) environmental protection team, which said noise levels for tenants will be approximately level with background noise levels are, therefore, “unlikely to be at nuisance levels”.
The rejected plans
The two developers submitted individual rival applications to convert offices at 6-8 Market Place into 100 flats but Reading Borough Council (RBC) planning officers refused both applications in July due to noise concerns.
A previous application from Tene Living to convert the three-to-four storey offices into 144 studio apartments was refused by RBC in May, due to concerns about noise and contamination issues for future occupiers.
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Before the three refusals, a plan from Castleforge Partners to extend the ‘Soane Point’ offices by five storeys and make it a mix of co-working spaces and private offices was withdrawn after concerns were raised by City Pub Group, which owns the neighbouring Market House.
The two 100-flat plans were refused due to concerns future tenants would be adversely affected by noise from extractor fans from nearby commercial businesses.
Officers said residents would not be able to open their windows without being exposed to noise which will potentially amount to a nuisance being up to 30 decibels above background levels.
By reducing the number of flats and increasing the size of some flats in the latest application, along with other improvements, these concerns have been overcome and the development can now go ahead.
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