A private school is hoping to create a boarding house for 27 pupils by knocking through three former family homes.
Brighton College, which has been carrying out major building works at its Kemp Town campus for the past decade, has permission to use the three adjoining houses in Walpole Road as student accommodation, to house 16 students.
But it now wants to knock through interjoining doors and extend the loft to create a boarding house for 27 pupils.
It has already demolished the garden walls to create a single garden at the back.
Its application to create the boarding house was rejected by Brighton and Hove City Council in July last year, because it would be an “unacceptable intensification in the use of the site”.
The college is now hoping to have the decision overturned on appeal.
In its statement of appeal, the college’s planning agent Lichfields says: “The appeal site is in an urban neighbourhood which is predominantly characterised by a mix of residential dwelling types of different sizes and tenures, including boarding school accommodation.
“The character is further dominated by Brighton College itself with on and off-site boarding accommodation, such as the boarding house at 20 Walpole Road at the end of Walpole Road.
“The neighbourhood has multiple educational facilities and the local community therefore includes families and boarding school pupils.
“In this context, the proposal to increase the number of pupils occupying the appeal site is not considered to detrimentally unbalance the character of the area or character of Walpole Road.”
It said that the renovations would include “acoustic upgrading” and the boarding house would be used by full boarders who spend most of their weekends doing organised activities on the main campus.
It added: “The proposal reduces the need for Brighton College to add incremental properties as boarding stock through more sustainably increasing the capacity in the existing boarding houses.”
The statement also raised concerns that the council had not consulted Brighton College – a “key stakeholder who represents a significant majority of the area” – when drawing up its draft College Conservation Area Character Statement, which planning officers referenced when refusing the plans.
More than 80 comments have been submitted to the appeal by third parties – usually residents – on the planning portal.
One said: “I have lived here over a decade and have never known a time when the college is not undertaking a building scheme and pushing the boundaries of its footprint within this neighbourhood.
“I understand the school has increased its architectural footprint by 40,000 square meters on its own land, now it’s building and overextending itself in the surrounding area, taking away opportunities for people and families to live here.
“Please do not let the school increase the number of students as a pure profit scheme. Any encouragement of this will give them a green light to buy up more homes and convert them into more boarding houses.
“There is already a well known housing shortage for families in the Brighton area.
“The school arrogantly pursues a policy of continuous building which not only affects the community aspect of this conservation area, but it is overwhelming the space with its new buildings and we experience a twice daily rush hour already on our road during term time as well as the constant noise of construction all year round.”
Another said: “Brighton College is a private business, does not function as a community school and, as such, offers nothing to the local community.
“It is NOT a facility for local children or residents; we are NOT allowed to use it.
“Brighton and Hove has serious housing problems and private dwellings should not be used as boarding facilities for private institutions.”
Another said: “I believe that Brighton College are increasing their influence and taking over and changing the character of a beautiful, residential community.”
And another said: “It is not acceptable that residential properties are being purchased by the school in order to house students, thereby reducing the number of homes available for families/groups. Increasingly, it feels like the area is a service for the school rather than an integral part of the Brighton community.”
Other commenters said that work to knock through the houses had commenced – but this was denied in the college’s planning statement, which said enforcement officers had confirmed that walls had only been knocked down according to the approved plans for the individual houses.
Other commenters disputed the veracity of sworn statements saying that 8 Walpole Road had been used as a boarding house for more than ten years, saying it had instead only been occupied by college staff.
The appeal is currently under consideration.
Brighton College is entrenched in the area anyway. The college is correct in that there already exists boarding school accomodation (apart from their own), which is Hamilton Lodge, a school for deaf children in Walpole Road. I don’t know what Brighton College do for the community, however their reputation speaks volumes, and apparently has a national reputation. I would hope the area would benefit from that, plus also increased profit for local businesses. Hopefully, they would they employ staff from the community to help run and maintain the boarding house. I’ve always thought that area to be very busy anyway, with the hospital, St Georges Road and Freshfield Road. Can there be room for Brighton College to have this and co-exist with the community without making existing residents spectators in their own neighbourhood, plus can the college do things for the community that would endear them rather than alienate them? To me, Brighton College is a wonderful visual distraction on the boring bus ride along Eastern Road to the hospital.
Being “entrenched”, a “good neighbour”, doing stuff for the “community” and having a “national reputation” simply does not absolve them from having to follow planning law and local policies.
and indeed they are ” following planning law and local policies” all ready.