Fresh bid for flats at former Wellingborough office building after previous application rejected

Another bid to build flats on a single-storey former office building has been made months after a first was rejected.

Developers want to demolish Peerless House in Talbot Road, Wellingborough, and build 27 one-bedroom units in a three-storey building.

A four-storey building containing 38 one-bedroom flats was rejected by North Northamptonshire Council in March.

The authority said that development would have been “harmful” and “incongruous” with the neighbourhood, which is a short walk from the town’s Grade II listed train station.

Alpine Planning Ltd said the council had said the first project “was simply too large” and so it has cut the number of bedrooms.

It said the work “now relates more comfortably with the other structures within the street scene” and that it is “more sympathetic” to homes on either side of Talbot Road.

Previously, Alpine Planning Ltd said its earlier designs were put together to “carefully consider” the area’s character and that the proposed building would have resembled a converted factory.

But the council said it would have resulted in an “unacceptable loss of light” and caused overshadowing to nearby buildings.

It said the potential replacement for the 1960s office building, which has been used as a boxing gym since the start of 2022, would have resulted in “overdevelopment”.

The second version will be decided by North Northamptonshire Council in due course.