Green light for mill plan (From Stroud News and Journal)

Green light for mill plan

DEVELOPERS have won the first leg of a three-year planning battle to turn a disused Minchinhampton cloth mill into a residential complex of 102 apartments and houses.

Builders EDE Ltd want to convert the 6.7-hectare woodland site at Longfords Mill into 41 two, three and four bed houses and 61 one and two bed apartments.

Last week, Stroud District Council, which shares site planning jurisdiction with Cotswold District Council, gave the company the go ahead to begin work on building 74 of the residences.

Cotswold District Council is to rule on the application for the remaining 28 apartments and houses on its land, in July.

Ernie Rumsey, a director of the Oxfordshire-based family-firm, said: "We are very pleased. It has taken a long time and a huge amount of negotiation. The planning department has been very understanding but it has had to make sure everything that happens there is right."

Construction work at the mill, which closed down in the 1990s, will begin immediately and is expected to take two years to complete.

Mr Rumsey said the properties would cater for single residents in the main - divorcees, the elderly and young people seeking a foothold on the property ladder.

Stroud District Council's development control committee voted nine to one in favour of the amended application, first submitted in its original form three years ago.

They were unswayed by Minchinhampton ward councillor Elisabeth Bird's submission that the scale of the development would generate excessive traffic levels and destroy wildlife at what she described as a uniquely beautiful and tranquil site.

Committee chair Cllr Mike Beard said: "I think what we've got here now is not a perfect answer but it is as good an answer as we are going to get."

The total scheme includes 207 car-parking spaces for residents, officer workers and visitors, but Mr Rumsey insisted the traffic impact would be minimal.

"Those who buy the apartments will have one car or no cars quite often," he said.

Principal planning officer John Longmuir estimated an extra vehicle every two minutes at morning peak times.

Traffic lights are to be installed at the junction between Avening Road and the Longfords Mill access lane, which is to be widened to accommodate two-way traffic and equipped with pavements either side for residents.

Mr Rumsey moved to scotch fears the development would harm the environment, explaining residents will pay an annual contribution to a central fund for the ecological upkeep of the valley.

Builders EDE Ltd - restorers of Tortworth Court Four Pillars Hotel - has almost completed its development of neighbouring The Iron Mills, with all but one of the properties sold.

"We are a small family business, we do care, we do know what we are doing and taking on existing buildings is quite a challenge but we have done it before," he said.