Conservation Area Matters
From time to time inappropriate development adversely affects our conservation areas and currently we are facing two unfortunate examples.
These last weeks the Society has been campaigning to overturn a planning committee consent to demolish rare Victorian buildings off Spon Street. Their replacement would be a four‐storey block of studio flats to accommodate students.
Coventry Society asked for the proposal to be turned down when it came before planners three years ago. We considered it out of scale with neighbouring buildings in Lower Holyhead Road. Now we have other objectors—the new owner of The Rising Sun Pub and the Funeral Service, both bordering the site.
At the end of last month renewal of consent for demolition of buildings on the site (pictured below) was considered by planners once again, and Chris Patrick, the City Council’s Conservation and Archaeology Officer recommended the application be refused. He said: ’The modern shed structures fronting Lower Holyhead Road are in poor condition and have a negative impact on Spon Street Conservation Area, but behind them are a row of earlier cottages’.
Our research indicates that 100 years ago they housed a funeral supplier and shroud factory. A historic site, yet consent was granted subject to the earlier cottages being properly recorded!
The other issue centres on the corner of Hay Lane and Bayley Lane where the new owner of a restaurant about to open, has painted the ground‐floor walls of the sandstone building a matt black!
What do you think?