Controversial housing plan returns

A controversial plan to build housing on the site of a former day centre has returned just three months after it was turned down by the council.

The former Touchstone Day Centre in Geraldine Road in Malvern would be knocked down and replaced with 28 affordable homes under fresh plans by Keon Homes and Platform Housing.

The contentious scheme, which received a wave of objections when it went before planners last year, has been put forward again with “minor amendments” by the developers.

Eight bigger one-bed maisonettes would now be built as part of the development and would meet space standards, according to the application, but between 88 and 90 per cent of the two-and-three-bed homes would meet the required size meaning some of the buildings would still not meet standards.

The controversial plan by Keon Homes and Platform Housing was first put forward in September 2021 and rejected more than a year later by Malvern Hills District Council’s planning committee despite the council’s own officers recommending the plan should be approved.

District councillors said that the plan included too many homes for the land – calling it “harmful overdevelopment” when it rejected the application last year and the layout would cause “a poor living environment” for future tenants if they were allowed to be built.

Despite the mass of objections to the new affordable housing, a call to approve the plan was just narrowly lost when it went to a vote with planning chair Cllr Julie Wood using her casting vote after the committee was tied by five votes to five.

The original plan would have seen the former day centre demolished to make way for 37 affordable homes, but the scheme was later cut down to 28 homes following talks between the developer and council planners.

The day centre closed in 2016 and has remained empty after services were transferred to the Malvern Cube.

You can have your say on the plan by visiting Malvern Hills District Council’s website.

The application number is M/22/01897/FUL and consultation ends on February 10.