Sturry Road Student Block Refused Against Officers' Advice

Canterbury City Council’s planning committee has refused plans for 402 student rooms on the former Invicta Motors site at 59-61 Sturry Road. Its own planning officers had recommended approval.

The vote came at the committee’s meeting on Tuesday 13 October. We have watched the council’s webcast of the meeting to check what was decided on every item. The same evening, councillors approved 56 retirement flats beside Canterbury West station with no affordable housing. They also approved two houses at Upper Harbledown that officers had said should be refused.

What was refused on Sturry Road

The application, CA/23/00788, was validated in April 2023. The applicant is Invicta Motors Ltd. The scheme would have replaced the empty car dealership and servicing centre with:

• 402 student rooms: 319 en-suite rooms in shared clusters and 83 studios
• blocks of two to six storeys, tallest in the middle of the site and stepping down at the edges
• communal rooms and outdoor space at the rear
• a cycle store facing Sturry Road and a second pedestrian entrance from Barton Mill Road

The planning officer told the meeting that the room mix had changed slightly since the committee report was written, which gave 320 cluster rooms and 82 studios. Fifty people objected, mostly about height and scale, as we reported in our preview of the meeting. The report recommended approval once a legal agreement was signed, including £206,000 towards nearby cycle routes.

Officers also proposed an extra condition at the meeting. No one could have moved in before 1 April 2030. The reason given was to manage waste water from the site and protect water quality at Stodmarsh, the protected wetland east of the city.

Updated 7 November: the published minutes give the votes. The motion to grant fell by six votes to one, with two abstentions. Refusal was then carried by six votes to three. The minutes add that no decision notice will be issued until the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government has been consulted for 21 days.

How the vote went

Speaking for the application, the applicant’s planning consultant told the committee the site was brownfield land close to Canterbury Christ Church University and the University for the Creative Arts.

A motion to grant permission, as officers recommended, was put to the vote and fell. A councillor then proposed refusal and another seconded it. A planning officer warned the committee that a refusal had to be backed by evidence that would stand up at appeal, and said deferring the item for clearer images of the scheme was still an option.

The committee voted to refuse. The reasons agreed at the meeting were that the scheme would be overbearing, and that its massing would not fit the street scene. The committee singled out its relationship with the neighbouring two-storey homes, in both scale and materials.

The council has not yet issued the decision notice. On 27 October the planning register still listed the application as “awaiting decision”. The written reasons in that notice are the ones that count, and any appeal would run from it.

The other decisions that night

Retirement flats, Station Road West. Churchill Retirement Living’s four-storey block of 56 flats was approved. It sits on the former temporary car park behind the Goods Shed. The officer told the meeting that a condition limits the flats to people aged 55 and over. The scheme provides no affordable housing. Council policy asks for 30%, but the committee report said the council’s own viability assessor agreed the scheme could not afford any. Twenty-four people objected. The report proposed £24,318.29 towards open space.

Two houses, Upper Harbledown. Officers recommended refusal of two houses on the skip yard off Old London Road, about two miles west of the city centre, because the site is in open countryside outside any village boundary. Ten people had written in support. The committee voted to approve instead, and left the council’s head of planning to set the conditions with the applicant. The item does not need to come back to committee.

McDonald’s plant, Herne Bay. McDonald’s Restaurant Limited applied for new kitchen and air-handling plant on the roof of the Table Table at The Boulevard. There were 73 objections. The committee granted it. Officers told the meeting the permission bars cooking between midnight and 6am every day.

All four applications were still listed as “awaiting decision” on the register on 27 October. The two that needed a legal agreement, Sturry Road’s and the retirement flats’, normally wait for it to be signed before a notice is issued.

What it means for you

• If you live near Sturry Road, the empty dealership stays as it is for now. Invicta Motors Ltd can appeal to the Planning Inspectorate once the decision notice is issued, or submit a new design. Watch the register entry for the notice.
• If you rent in the city, the applicant’s planning consultant argued at the meeting that the halls would help release family homes now let as shared student houses. He also told councillors that the committee report accepts the council cannot show a five-year supply of housing land, and that student rooms count towards it. Both points will come up again in any appeal.
• If you want to follow other schemes, our guide to Canterbury planning applications explains how to search the register and comment.

The council’s committee minutes for 13 October have not been published, and its democracy website could not be reached on 27 October. We will add the formal decision notices when they appear.