Studio apartment plan for former Scarborough care home refused over parking concerns

Harrison Thorpe’s proposal to convert 2 Trafalgar Square, Scarborough into 12 studio apartments was supported by the NHS but has been refused by the council over concerns about a lack of parking space.

The four-storey end-of-terrace building was originally constructed as a dwelling and is located “within an established residential area of Scarborough”.

No objections were raised by the authority’s environmental health team but the Highway Authority “recommend refusal on the basis that the proposal would result in the large increase of residents and subsequent vehicular parking”.

The application had received support from the York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust which said the proposal would provide “much-needed rental accommodation for staff and others”.

A council report also noted that the applicant had initially sought the change of use from an HMO.

However, further investigation found that the HMO at the site was “prevented from being implemented by the council’s environmental health department before ever being brought into use, and therefore, was not lawful”.

In refusing the scheme, planning officers stated that approval of the plan would “detrimentally increase the pressure for on-street parking in an area where parking pressures already exist”.

The officers said that the proposal would “cause detrimental harm to the existing residents on Trafalgar Square and would result in harm to the safety and convenience of users of the public highway as well as to the free flow of traffic”.

The refusal notice stated: “The parking demand for the proposed flats would significantly exceed the parking demand associated with the extant use.”