Public notices: Central Maidenhead office could become 39 flats

A planning application is looking to turn an office in Maidenhead into 39 flats - following a relaxation of rules by central Government in March.

The Reach, in Bridge Avenue, is an office building with three floors of office space and a basement, as well as two care-parking areas which ‘will not be changed’ as part of the proposals.

It was originally granted planning permission for sheltered housing units and office space in 1986.

This was a fairly sweeping plan, with 2,220sqm of office floorspace proposed, basement parking for 74 cars, surface car parking for 50, enhancement of the footpath adjacent to York Stream, a bus lay-by for dour buses, and a footpath link between York Stream and the pedestrian bridge.

Reserved matters approval was granted for the office building, car park, bus shelters and footpath in 1987. Since then, there has been just one other relevant application - a 2007 construction of a two- and three-storey extension, for offices.

Now Aegon UK Property Fund Limited (c/o Columbia Threadneedle Investments) is looking to change the use of The Reach into 39 flats.

These would be 19 one-bed and 20-two bed flats, made by altering only the internal area of the offices.

It would also include 70 cycle parking spaces, ‘exceeding the local [council’s] requirement’ of one space per unit.

The process the developer is using to seek permission is known as ‘permitted development rights’ or PDR and the ‘prior approval’ process.

Within a specific set of national rules, PDR allow greater ease of conversion of offices into flats, if certain conditions are met.

The applicant can then bypass the full planning process by meeting these conditions.

PDR is somewhat controversial, since it gives local authorities less power to turn down an application in favour of protecting its employment space.

Nonetheless, the former Government recently relaxed some of the rules, expanding the scope of this kind of application.

In March, the Government allowed for expanded use of PDR to convert from commercial use to residential, by omitting two restrictions relevant to this application.

One was the 1,500sqm maximum floorspace limit, and the other was the three-month vacancy requirement.

Ie, the buildings can now be larger than 1,500sqm to qualify, and don’t have to have been unoccupied for at least three months.

“The proposed development complies with the criteria necessary to permit the change,” wrote the applicant’s representatives, Savills.

See all plans in Windsor and Maidenhead council’s online planning portal with reference number 24/01644/CLAMA.

This plan was in the public notices. See them in full here: