Former school to be demolished for new flats

A former school will be demolished to make way for new flats after plans were given the green light.

The former St Placide’s school in Battenhall in Worcester will now be knocked down and replaced with almost 50 ‘retirement’ flats despite criticisms over its design.

Cllr Alan Amos said the proposed new flats were “featureless” and looked like a factory from the 1960s.

“It’s bigger and denser so on what basis is it sustainable?” he asked during the meeting of the planning committee in the Guildhall on Thursday (November 24).

“I am concerned about the loss of green space. I’ve seen it in my own ward. There seems to have been a process started where if a house has a big garden, then demolish the house and plonk lots of flats, bungalows and houses on it, as much as you can get.

“And that’s very bad. Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean we should. Green space is there for a reason. Just because we can demolish [the building] because it isn’t listed, doesn’t mean we should.”

Cllr Louis Stephen, who represents the Battenhall ward, was critical of the “big and significant expansion” and said it was not the council’s role to make sure the developer can make money but to “protect the environment and to make sure that local residents were not being disadvantaged.”

“This is a big expansion,” he said. “This is going from 32 dwellings to 51 dwellings, that is a significant amount.”

Council planning officers had recommended the application was approved saying the new building would be “attractive and more efficient” compared to the one approved in 2018.

The previous scheme, approved by Worcester City Council in 2018, would have seen the former Victorian junior school stay in place with newer extensions, built in the 1940s and 50s, demolished for more than 30 retirement flats.

Enterprise Retirement Living then said it wanted to tear down the entire building and replace it with a new three-storey apartment building and 15 more flats and four new bungalows.

The former school’s tennis courts would also be built on with two new apartment blocks containing 23 flats bringing the total to 47 apartments and almost doubling the size of the development.