Land Known As Weymouth Peninsula, the Esplanade, Weymouth
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APPLICATION NUMBER: WP/18/00403/OUT APPLICATION SITE: LAND KNOWN AS WEYMOUTH PENINSULA, THE ESPLANADE, WEYMOUTH PROPOSAL: Demolition of existing buildings (excluding Pavilion Theatre and Jurassic Skyline viewing tower) and redevelopment for a mix of leisure and commercial uses including hotels, mixed use pub/diner with guest accommodation, restaurants and cafes, indoor leisure buildings, public car parking, commercial fishing and mixed-use harbour buildings and harbour operation and storage areas together with associated landscaping, street furniture, structures, open space and access to and within the site. Outline Application with details of Access, all other matters reserved. APPLICANT: Weymouth and Portland Borough Council CASE OFFICER: Clare McCarthy WARD MEMBER(S): Councillor Francis Drake, Councillor Jason Osborne, Councillor Tia Roos RECOMMENDATION SUMMARY: Delegate to the Head of Planning to approve subject to completion of a s106 legal agreement to secure sustainable transport contributions and marine ecology mitigation and enhancements. 1.0 DESCRIPTION OF SITE 1.1 Weymouth Peninsula is a highly visible mass of land which projects into the English Channel at the mouth of the River Wey. It forms the gateway to the Weymouth harbour, with Brewers Quay on Nothe Peninsula to the south and Custom House Quay alongside the Peninsula on the north. The Peninsula can be seen clearly from the World Heritage Coast, The Weymouth Esplanade, Custom House Quay and Nothe Peninsula. 1.2 The Peninsula lies to the south of the Esplanade seafront and to the north of Nothe Peninsula, with Nothe Fort Ancient Monument and Grade 2 * listed building at its eastern end. Access to the Peninsula by road and footpath is directly from the southern end of the Esplanade leading to a surface car park and turning area on the Peninsula itself. Bus services currently stop at King’s Statue on the Esplanade and Weymouth Train Station is approx. twelve minute walk away. 1.3 The Peninsula has been extended several times and now has a site area of approximately 5 hectares consisting of man-made structure of 400m in length. In summary, the history of the Peninsula is as follows: the original pile pier was constructed in the 1840s; The Peninsula was added to for the later Victorian tramway for passenger trains to Weymouth Quay station, to meet the Steam ships; and The Peninsula was substantially increased again in the 1970s to provide a ferry terminal and car parking, when the roll on roll off Ferries were in use carrying cars and passengers to the Channel Islands and Cherbourg. 1.4 Since the Ferry service terminated in 2015, the area has become underutilised and the ferry buildings have become redundant. The harbour walls are in need of repair, and the first section along Custom House Quay is currently the subject of a planning application. The key landmark buildings remaining in use on the Peninsula are the Pavilion Theatre rebuilt following a fire and opened in 1960, and the Jurassic Skyline Tower at its North-eastern corner, which marked the millennium. 1.5 The quayside of the Peninsula known as Weymouth Quay remains in use for fishing boats, angling and the mooring of boats. A ferry service also runs across the River Wey from the steps at Weymouth Quay across to North Quay. The Harbour is managed by Weymouth and Portland Borough Council as the Statutory Harbour Authority 1.6 The Esplanade, which is host to a renowned curved terrace, provides the setting for the Peninsula, and characterises Weymouth’s unique historic legacy as a seaside resort. Nearly all the buildings on the Esplanade are listed, and retain much of their Georgian and Victorian architectural style and detailing. Together the terraces form a cohesive linear group, with relatively consistent building heights and strong rhythmic vertical definitions provided by the windows and chimneys. No one structure dominates the terraces or overshadows the green backdrop of Nothe Fort and Peninsula. 1.7 The entrance to the Peninsula (referred to in some statutory consultee comments as ‘the neck’) lies within the Weymouth Town Centre Conservation Area and the site is surrounded by World Heritage Coastline to north and south. The prominent Roundhouse Hotel and other Devonshire buildings at the neck of the Peninsula form the end of the curved Georgian Terracing on the Esplanade. There is a gap of approx. 80 metres between the Pavilion and the Roundhouse Hotel which offers views from Nothe Gardens through to the Esplanade and reciprocally from the Esplanade to the Nothe. 1.8 The site is identified as one of 5 key development sites in the Weymouth Town Centre Masterplan Supplementary Planning Document, a masterplan aimed at regenerating Weymouth Town Centre. The masterplan is discussed later in this report. 2.0 DESCRIPTION OF DEVELOPMENT 2.1 This application is an Outline Application for the demolition of existing modern harbour and ferry related buildings on the application site associated with the former ferry and tramway terminals, other than the ferry linkspan buildings. The Pavilion Theatre and the Jurassic Skyline buildings are the only leisure buildings to be retained on the application site. The application seeks outline permission for the redevelopment of the site to incorporate a mix of leisure and commercial uses. Illustrative plans are provided showing two hotels, three restaurants, two leisure buildings, car parking, enhanced landscaping and commercial fishing and harbour storage areas. The application seeks approval for the proposed access, with all other matters reserved. 2.2 The piled pleasure pier situated at the eastern end of the Peninsula, together with two 1930s buildings, (formerly public conveniences and bathing/diving club, recently used as a tearooms), remain outside the site boundary and do not form part of the current planning application. 2.3 A number of drawings and images have been submitted with the application to indicate how the site may be developed to incorporate the required mix of leisure and commercial uses. These documents include an illustrative site layout plan, an illustrative massing of buildings, a Visual Impact Assessment (VIA) in relation to heritage and a Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment (LVIA) along with a landscape strategy report. All these plans and documents have been amended during the application process other than the illustrative site layout, which remains as submitted. 2.4 The scheme shown on the illustrative site layout plan and on the most recently submitted illustrative massing drawing shows flat roofed buildings comprising: An 11m high “Main Hotel” immediately to the east of the Pavilion Three, 10m high restaurants between the main Hotel and the Jurassic Skyline A large 10m high leisure unit on the eastern edge of the Peninsula A 10m high “Pub/Diner with Accommodation” in the gap between the Pavilion and the Devonshire Building, to the west of the Pavilion. 2.6 Importantly, the illustrative plans are just that, and no permission is sought to confirm building locations and/or design at this stage. What they do provide however is a context for imposing conditions to control heights and locations of buildings on the site, should the Committee be minded to do so. 2.5 The proposed development is of a mixed-use nature with a focus around recreation and leisure, indicatively showing a café, limited service hotel (100 rooms), boutique hotel (20 rooms) & restaurant, leisure units (which could include rock climbing, trampolining, adventure golf and children’s soft play area), a harbour building (which could include space for fisherman, business- start up space and an information/learning centre for visitors) and an area for independent retailers to trade from (i.e. shipping containers). 2.7 During the course of the application other amended documents have also been submitted, including updated Transport Assessment and further survey work, Flood Risk Assessment and Drainage information, a revised Biodiversity Mitigation Plan and Addendum to the Landscape Visual Impact Assessment. 3.0 RELEVANT HISTORY 3.1 Prior to the recession in 2009 the Council had explored pre-application advice about the redevelopment of the Peninsula, including a replacement for the Pavilion Theatre, hotels commercial buildings and residential developments with associated marinas. Once the recession took hold the scale of the proposal no longer matched the market and an application was never progressed. 3.2 Since that time, the Council has progressed with its Local Plan, which was adopted in 2015. Policy WEY1 relates to all town centre developments and Policy WEY6 relates solely to the redevelopment of the Peninsula site. This was swiftly followed by a more detailed analysis of the town centre and Peninsula with the publication of the Weymouth Town Centre Masterplan Supplementary Planning Document (SPD), adopted by the Council in October 2015. This SPD document sets out a long term regeneration strategy for the town centre and includes a section with a comprehensive strategy for Weymouth Peninsula, based on identifying key objectives namely: pedestrian public areas, public art and links to the town centre high quality, unique housing improve the harbour facilities for boats provision of strategic flood defence work mixed use activities focussed on café and restaurant, commercial and retail uses 3.3 The Ferry Service to the Channel Islands ceased in March 2015 and it has become clear that it is cost prohibitive for it to return in the foreseeable future. As a result, the Council has progressed towards a planning application based on the ideas of the Masterplan SPD. The only element of the SPD not being progressed at this stage is residential accommodation, due to housing being a more vulnerable use in relation to potential tidal and flooding issues, requiring costly flood prevention measures prior to development. The Council is therefore seeking to progress with a regeneration proposal to stimulate future investment on the Peninsula, which would not prevent residential development being reconsidered at a later stage through a separate planning application process.