Plans for five flats near Maidenhead town centre approved

The existing semi-detached pair of houses at 29-31 Harrow Lane will be demolished to make way for five two-bedroom flats with four car parking spaces to the rear and landscaping to the front of the new building.

Bin and cycle storage will also be placed at the back of the apartment.

The applicants slightly tweaked the now-approved plans following a previous refusal on the grounds that removing a large part of the garden and including a crown roof in the designs would be out of character with the area.

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Planning officers at the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead also deemed unit five to be “poorly ventilated and lacking in light”.

Before this refused application, plans for seven one-bedroom flats and a pre-application for six flats were also blocked.

The applicant has since addressed the reasons for refusal by reducing the scale of the rear for a larger garden in keeping with neighbouring properties.

The crown roof has also been removed and additional lighting has been added to unit five with an increase of floor space.

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One resident wrote to the local authority objecting to the plans, saying they still go against “many” of the council’s planning policies.

They said: “I don’t feel that any of our concerns have been addressed before approval and i do not understand why this has been approved now when three other attempts for the same plans were refused.”

A planning officer responded saying the council took into account their planning policies and concluded it does follow the development plan and the application was considered acceptable.