A REQUEST to consider three separate plans for flats along a 400-metre stretch of a main road in Christchurch have been dismissed.

Three different developers have put forward plans for sites in Barrack Road over the past year.

If all of the schemes were approved, 111 new homes would be built with a total of 33 car parking spaces across the three locations.

Calendula Assets Limited, which trades as DWP Housing Partnership, saw its proposal for 38 flats across three blocks at 215-225 Barrack Road approved by BCP Council’s planning committee at a meeting on May 24.

Bournemouth Echo: Dragon Palace in Barrack Road, Christchurch, the site where plans for plats have been approvedDragon Palace in Barrack Road, Christchurch, the site where plans for plats have been approved

Speaking at the meeting before this decision was reached, Commons ward councillor Vanessa Ricketts said the developments will have a “huge impact” on Barrack Road.

She asked the committee to defer its decision to consider it alongside the other plans for the same road, if members were not minded to refuse it when assessing it in isolation.

“As you know Barrack Road is one of the busiest in the three towns, with over 30,000 vehicle movements a day,” Cllr Ricketts said.

“There is only bus. It is the 1A. It goes from Christchurch town centre to Bournemouth town centre. It doesn’t the industrial units of the airport or Ferndown, the biggest industrial site in our area. In fact, to get to Ferndown it takes two buses and it takes an hour and a half.

Bournemouth Echo: Cllr Vanessa RickettsCllr Vanessa Ricketts (Image: Bcp council)

“There is no doubt people are going to have cars. The SPD (supplementary planning document) we have for parking is aspirational at best.

"We know that cars are going to pushed onto the already overcrowded sideroads.”

Councillor Ricketts said one of the pictures in the planning officer’s presentation showed the “endemic” pavement parking issue in the area.

The other two schemes referenced by the Christchurch Independents councillor concerned Fortitudo Ltd’s scaled down plans for 39 homes at the corner of Barrack Road and The Grove, and Rother Properties Ltds proposal for 34 flats on the A and G car wash site.

Bournemouth Echo: A and G car wash in Barrack Road, ChristchurchA and G car wash in Barrack Road, Christchurch

Councillor Ricketts said: “When there were three applications for supermarkets in Christchurch within three miles of each other at Christchurch Borough Council, the planning committee there agreed to bring all three applications to the same committee.

“The reason was to assess the overall impact of those schemes. Yet here we are now with three large schemes within 400 metres.”

Councillor Ricketts said this “holistic approach” would allow the “full impact of this piecemeal overdevelopment of Barrack Road can be fully assessed”.

Planning committee member Felicity Rice, Alliance for Local Living councillor for Oakdale, asked if Cllr Ricketts’s suggestion to consider all three applications together was possible.

Planning officer Sophie Mawdsley told the committee: “No, each of them depending when they are all submitted to us and assessed we just have to bring them forward when we can.

“Each application is determined on its own merits.

“We are aware of all the developments that happen within a certain area and BCP Highways are fully aware of all the other applications on Barrack Road but the proposal Is considered to meet policy and the parking SPD.”