A DEVELOPER’S bid to scrap plans for a shop unit and replace it with another flat among the homes being built next to a pottery cafe in Tilehurst have been approved.

Builders are busy at work constructing a 2.5-storey building containing new homes in School Road, at what was a scruffy patch of land and billboard next to the Mad Hatters Pottery and Painting Café.

Initially, the building was meant to contain two two-bed and two one-bed flats, with a shop on the ground floor.

But the developer Chesters Place is no longer planning on providing the shop unit.

The latest update shows the developer has successfully applied to get rid of the retail unit and make the space it occupied on the ground floor into a two-bedroom apartment instead.

Reading Chronicle: The plan for the ground floor of 114-116 School Road Tilehurst, where a proposed shop will now be made into a two bedroom apartment. Credit: Harding Rose ArchitectsThe plan for the ground floor of 114-116 School Road Tilehurst, where a proposed shop will now be made into a two bedroom apartment. Credit: Harding Rose Architects

At a planning meeting, council officer Joel Grist said that the retail unit is incomplete and therefore could be converted.

Officer Grist recommended that the plan be approved subject to a section 106 legal agreement which would involve Chesters Place paying the council £10,750 to fund affordable housing provision elsewhere in Reading.

An earlier plan for the building application reference 211276, was refused by the council as an agreement between the developer and the council over S106 contributions was not reached.

While that refusal was overturned by a government planning inspector on appeal, adjustments to the plan were made in a newer application, reference 220086, which was approved by the council in May last year.

READ MORE: Work steaming ahead on new homes and shop being built next to popular Tilehurst café

During the meeting, councillor James Moore (Liberal Democrats, Tilehurst) said: “Now [the developers] have obviously worked out that the retail unit was not viable and would like to turn it into housing.

“I have no problem with that as a principle but I feel like there was still the outstanding issue of affordable housing contribution.

“I am very happy that the officer has secured an agreement with the developer, so I’m happy to approve it on that basis.”

The conversion of the retail unit into a two bed apartment, application reference 230241 was then unanimously approved by the council’s planning committee on Wednesday, May 31.

It means the building will now total three two-bed and two one-bed flats, with three car parking spaces provided. 

While some neighbours objected to the plan raising concerns over parking, it was noted that the ground floor apartment would generate less traffic than the originally proposed shop would do.