Object

Draft Local Plan-Part 2 Site Allocations

Representation ID: 22566

Received: 16/03/2020

Respondent: Historic England

Representation Summary:

This site lies within the Norwich City Centre Conservation Area. This site is an important one in this part of the Norwich conservation area and is in the setting of several listed buildings. It forms part of the south side of Colegate, the principle historic street of what was once the Norvic settlement and which contains numerous important historic buildings including several listed ones. A group of grade II listed buildings are situated on Colegate at the north end of the site as well as the parish church of St George (grade I listed) and the grade II* listed Bacon's House and numbers 2-9 Octagon Court. The site also lies in an interesting position in the conservation area where the nature of historic building changes. Modern development between Colegate and the river (Friar's Quay) is akin in scale and form to the generally low-rise, domestic scale of development on the north side of the River stretching along Colegate eastwards to Magdalen Street. The Friar's Quay development is a very successful and early example of modern residential development in an historic city which responds to the historic 'grain' of development from a time when development commonly disregarded it. To the west side of the application site is St Andrew's Street, also characterised by relatively modest, pitched roofed development, both historic (including the grade II listed numbers 22-25 and later infill matching it. This street marks the point at which the character of historic development changes. The western side of St Andrew's Street features a former 19th century factory building filling a corner plot on Colegate. This is similar in form, though smaller than the 19th century Art College building across the river to the south. Upstream from the college is modern development of a similar scale. St Andrew's Street can therefore be seen as a 'hinge' point in this part of the conservation area and the application site being to the east of it falls within the area characterised by more domestic scale development, both old and new.
Any development of the site therefore has the potential to impact upon a number of heritage assets and their settings.
We consider that there is scope for development of this site, but it will need to be of an appropriate scale and grain for this site. This should be reflected in the policy.
We welcome reference to the Conservation Area and heritage assets and their settings in bullet point 1 although again suggest that the wording is slightly amended to include the word significance. The site itself also formerly contained a non-conformist chapel dating from the 18th century. The impact on buried archaeology of the development will need to be given full consideration.

Suggested Change:
We recommend amending the wording of bullet point 1 to refer to significance.
Include reference to scale, grain and massing in policy.
We also suggest reference to buried archaeology given the former non-conformist chapel on the site.

Full text:

For full representation, please refer to attached documents