Monday 3 March 2014

Granville House Ramsgate. Objections to the planning application have to be with the council by tomorrow

Update, the date was an error objections don’t have to be in until 14/03/2014

If you wish to object by email your objection must contain your name and address and your objection can be sent to planning.services@thanet.gov.uk   

As this is a reminder my previous post about it is below which explains the details of the application. 

One of the most distinctive buildings on Ramsgate’s cliff tops is Granville House this was designed by Edward Welby Pugin the son of Augustus Pugin and was a hotel from 1869 to 1946 after which it was converted into 48 apartments.


Various additions and modifications were made to the building during this period and all of these were done in the same gothic revival style used by Edward Welby Pugin.


During the second world war part of the building was destroyed by a bomb.



Then in 1982 another large chunk was demolished.

I suppose there is a balance here between what is most dangerous and destructive to our historic architecture the world war in the 1940s or the local council in the 1980s where a significant proportion of councillors were estate agents or involved in property development.


So looking at the map and wondering where the responsibility lies for demolishing parts of a significant listed building the green bit was down to Adolf Hitler and while the red bit down to TDC granting consent to demolish part of a listed building.

Anyway between the demolition and 2004 various planning applications to build the usual plastic windowed tacky high density flats on the site, some were passed at planning but as often happens the money couldn’t be found and now all of the planning consents have expired.


Then in 2004 the part demolished by Hitler was rebuilt in the same gothic revival style used by Edward Welby Pugin.

Nothing much happened after this apart from the remaining land changing hands and developers going bust until the site was sold by the Receivers in 2012.


The building site was bought by Jason Hough for £160,000 who submitted an application (L/TH/12/1019) in January 2013, to build 10 one-bedroomed flats and 28 two-bedroomed flats. Although recommended by the TDC case officer, Councillors voted against I guess there aren’t so many councillors who are estate agents these days.

The developers case for getting planning permission granted seems to have been if you can get it for an ugly 80s structure in the 80s why can’t you get it for an ugly 80s structure now.

I think the real point he has missed is that having demolished half a gothic revival building and then rebuilt a quarter of it in gothic revival style, the only thing that makes sense is to rebuild the remaining quarter in gothic revival style.    

Anyway the new planning application ref is F/TH/14/0083 you have to go to the council’s planning websitehttp://www.ukplanning.com/thanet and put it in the application ref search box to view the plans. 

Here are a few pictures taken from these plans, as you see they don't seem to have understood the gothic revival style yet, so I will be objecting to this application on the grounds that gothic revival plus new build gothic revival  is fine but gothic revival plus new build gothic revival plus new build 1990s style isn’t it's just a mess.





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