Plan for 150 homes on Corby Co-op site knocked back over worries about impact on neighbours

The council has rejected plans to build 150 homes on the former Corby town centre Co-op site, which has been derelict since 2016.

The scheme calls for three blocks of apartment buildings up to six storeys tall on the former retail site in Alexandra Road. The current buildings would have also been knocked down to make way for the residential plans.

Applicant Glenrowan Homes, the sister firm of construction giant MPB based in Corby, also registered their intentions to North Northamptonshire Council (NNC) to build more than 2,100sqft of commercial floorspace

The buildings looked to include 73 one-bed flats, 76 two-bed flats, and one three-bed home. The building towers would have reached up to six storeys fronting Alexandra Road and gradually steps down to 3-2 stories to the eastern part of the site.

The application received 43 letters of objection in total, along with an objection lodged by the local MP Lee Barron. Concerns were raised about the high-density of homes, the number of parking spaces being ‘substantially below’ parking standards and concerns on the impact on local amenities and infrastructure.

NNC planning officers did recommend the plans for approval at the planning meeting, saying it would provide “a high quality, multi-storey building” and adequate amenity space.

However, not everyone agreed with this assessment. One local resident at the meeting called the development an “ill-planned, densely populated high rise development”.

“I represent the views of over 50 residents who are not against a development, but vehemently object to the current proposal. With such a complex application we can’t just rely on the planning team’s recommendation.

“It is hugely overshadowing and dominant oppressive presence over the existing neighbouring properties. It will set a precedent and cannot be supported by the current infrastructure.”

Another told the planning panel: “We all need enough space to live and protect our general health and wellbeing. In established inner cities where space is severely limited there might be a need to squeeze in cramped high rise developments like this, but in Corby this is not the case.”

Corby Cllr Lyn Buckingham also spoke, recognising the need for regeneration on the derelict site as it attracts anti-social behaviour, however she concluded that it had to be the “right” development to go there.

Patrick Boyle, director of Glenrowan Homes, which bought the site for £2m in 2022, said: “We love Corby. We started a housebuilding business because we care, we want to look after our people, we want to create jobs and we want to create homes we would like to buy ourselves.

“Corby needs housing, we’ve got people in our office who commute daily from Derby because they can’t find rented accommodation. We share the vision of the council in that a signature building should be built on that site.”

Officers told members that there was a “desperate need” for smaller housing units, such as the ones planned on this site, for young people coming into the area to live and work.

Debating the plans, Cllr Alison Dalziel told fellow committee members: “This site definitely needs something done to it, it is an absolute tip at the moment. But, whether this is the right thing I really don’t know. To say this is in keeping existing developments in Corby- I cannot name an existing development in Corby that is six storeys high.

“To have something as imposing and as dense as this looks I just don’t feel that it’s the right thing for what is actually a quite small piece of land. It used to be a supermarket and not a big supermarket at that. To think of 350 to 400 people living on that piece of land just, to me, does not make sense.”

Planning committee members voted to refuse the application on Wednesday (October 30) as a result of what they saw as the overdevelopment, the high-density scale of the flats and impact on nearby residents.