15th March 2012

DORCHESTER: Rival developers blamed for Brewery Square delays

By Trevor Bevins

Rival developers have been blamed for planning delays to Dorchester’s Brewery Square development.

District council planners decided last week to defer a decision on a planning application for changes to the former Eldridge Pope site.

The application had been proposed for approval by council officers.

The decision to take the application off the agenda for the West Dorset District Council planning committee meeting came after a last-minute objection to the Brewery Square proposals from Simons – the company working on the district council’s rival Charles Street re-development.

The deferment for the Brewery Square application could now mean delays for the Brewery Square scheme. The earliest the application will be looked at again is in April, but if an investigation is needed it could be held up for months.

Long-time objector to the building of the new Charles Street council offices, Philip Jordan, joined some councillors in their criticism of the withdrawal of the Brewery Square application at last week’s planning committee.

He said: “I don’t know what the rules are for developer’s submission deadlines re Planning Applications to WDDC Committee… But it is at least worthy of comment that the developer in question is Simons – acting for WDDC, the very body whose officers are reported as recommending the Brewery Square amendment to the same planning committee.”

Papers before councillors had shown planning officers recommending approval for changes to the Brewery Square development – but the issue was never discussed when committee chairman, Ian Gardner, ordered the application to be withdrawn.

He told councillors that a letter delivered by Simons the afternoon before the meeting claimed that shop units proposed at Brewery Square could jeopardise the viability of the Charles Street scheme.

Several councillors, including Dorchester’s Stella Jones and Robin Potter, objected to the late submission and decision to pull the Brewery Square application from the list.

“WDDC failed to sort it’s Charles Street site in decades – prior to the Brewery Square site seemingly coming into view and as Brewery Square is seemingly well on track and not at public expense, the WDDC action reported does seem at least strange,” said Mr Jordan.

Another objector to the Charles Street development, Chris Holmes, said that only six days before the meeting a report from officers to councillors said: “However, we know that the applicants for the Charles Street scheme are aware of this latest proposal, and they have not objected to it.”

He added: “Are we seeing the inevitable result of WDDC’s extraordinary actions with regard to the whole, misconceived Charles Street development now coming home to roost?”

A spokesman for the Brewery Square developers said they were disappointed that the application was withdrawn at the last minute.

They say the application was only for minor alterations to a planning consent granted in 2007 and involved increasing the number of beds in a hotel planned for the former brewhouse and alterations of the size of some flats and shop units, together with five new shops.

DORCHESTER: Rival developers blamed for Brewery Square delays

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