Derbyshire ‘prison cell’ bedsit plans set to be thrown out

Adam Colley of Erewash Estates has applied to turn a home in Springfield Gardens, Ilkeston, into 11 bedsits.

Of these bedsits, six would be in the house itself and five in a planned building to the rear of the property.

Erewash Borough Council’s planning committee is set to decide on the application on Wednesday, February 2, with the authority’s officers recommending refusal for a second time.

This comes around two months after Erewash councillors rejected plans in early November, with Cllr Terry Holbrook comparing them to a “prison yard with 11 cells”.

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The council ultimately turned the plans down due to the lack of space provided for would-be residents presenting “unacceptable living conditions”.

Now the applicant is back, having filed a tweaked application two weeks after the council refused the first iteration of the scheme.

The new application differs from that refused by re-organising the layout of some bedrooms to reduce internal corridors and increase the amount of “habitable space”, and by relocating the proposed cycle storage to increase the outdoor yard space.

However, council planning officers still say the scheme “would fail to provide adequate internal amenity space for future occupiers” and represents an “over intensive” development of the site.

They say the use of the outdoor yard area by “11 unrelated residents and their visitors would result in an unacceptable level of noise and disturbance which would result in harm to the amenity that nearby occupants currently enjoy”.

Officers say the proposed bedsits would also result in the “significant overlooking” of the main living area and main bedroom of the property next door, who, likewise, would also be able to see into bedrooms in the proposed scheme.