Developer planning apartments block near lakeside to be asked to pay £139,000 to the Peterborough community

A developer is to be told it must pay £139,000 to the community as part of plans to build 60 retirement apartments near a lakeside in Peterborough.

Retirement communities specialist, McCarthy Stone, wants to construct a block of two-bedroom and one-bedroom flats on land at St Edmund Walk, off Eagle Way, in Hampton.

While Peterborough City Council planning officers are recommending approval for the development they will also tell councillors the company should make a financial contribution to the community.

They will recommend to members of the council’s planning committee, which meets tomorrow (November 23), that a section 106 agreement should be agreed so McCarthy Stone pays £109,000 towards the cost of building affordable living accommodation elsewhere in the city.

The company will also be expected to pay £30,000 towards easing the ecological impact on the site which lies at the head of the Serpentine Lake, and will be expected to maintain the lakeside footpath.

Councillors will be told that under planning policy a development of this size would be expected to include the creation of at least 18 affordable homes.

A report to councillors states a financial viability appraisal showing why the developer cannot build the homes has been checked by experts who had advised that a £200,000 financial contribution towards offsite affordable housing should be made.

Discussions with the developer saw this reduced to £109,000 which has been deemed to be ‘reasonable’.

The development of the 0.37 hectare brownfield site, which was once home to a brickworks-related business and has been vacant for about 20 years, includes the creation of 40 car parking spaces.

The plans have triggered 31 objections from residents who have voiced concerns about the creation of extra traffic, the impact on already overstretched medical services, and that the site is not a suitable location for such a development.

But the report states: “The principle of residential development on this brownfield site is acceptable and the traffic impacts of the development are acceptable.

"Subject to appropriate offsite mitigation the development will not have any unacceptable ecological impacts.”

Katie Fisher, divisional managing director at McCarthy Stone Midlands, said: “There is a real need for specialist retirement accommodation in Peterborough, and this proposal would go some way to addressing that.”