The Royal Tunbridge Wells Civic Society Newsletter - Spring 2000

Gill Twells


Re-Development of Telephone House - 1st planning application

In December last year [ 1999 ], Crest Homes, together with BT, the current owners of the site, submitted planning applications for the demolition of Telephone House and its replacement with three new blocks of flats.

( It was the building, in the 1960’s of large modern buildings such as Telephone House, which were considered by many to be blots on the street-scape, that provoked the Civic Amenities Act. This led to the designation of Conservation Areas, and opened up the planning process to public comment. )

Your Committee, while whole-heartedly welcoming the demolition of Telephone House, was not at all impressed by the location and design of the proposed blocks of flats.

All blocks were to have four and a half stories above ground, with car parking in semi-basements, requiring extensive external raps to the ground floors of the flats. The main access for vehicles was to be from York Road with only six visitors’ parking spaces accessible form Church Road. the largest clock faced Church Road, with the front set back from the road about the same distance as at present. The other two blocks were to be located about two metres from the York Road pavement, necessitating the removal of all the existing trees along this boundary. The blocks were all to have roofs on a very flat pitch. The architecture could in our view best be described as boring and the effect on York Road as disastrous.

We felt that this important town centre site, in a Conservation Are, deserved a particularly well-designed re-development. Accordingly, we informed the Planners of our views and were considering organising a public meeting - at which we would invite the developers and their architects to present their scheme. We would have invited Society member and the general public, especially those living in the are, so that we could try to persuade the developers to amend the scheme to something more fitting.

However, since then, events have moved quickly. In mid-February [ 2000 ] the Planners issued an "approval" for the demolition (subject to approval for a replacement scheme) but a "refusal" for the proposed replacement scheme.

We have now been informed by Crest Homes that they have instructed another firm of architects to prepare a completely new scheme and that they would welcome the opportunity to discuss it with the Society when it is ready in about mid-March. We await the new scheme with great interest and hope for a significant improvement in the quality of the architecture.

Info:
1st Application: Architects: Fountain, Flanagan Briscoe, Tunbridge Wells
2nd Application: Architects: Trevor Sutters Partnership, London



How did the Civic Society see it in autumn 2000 ? - 2nd planning application