Knowsley House, Charleywood Road, Knowsley, L33 7BB

Change of use from Office Use (B1) to Hotel use (C1) with associated car parking and landscaping

Authority: Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council
Appeal type: minor · Planning Appeal
Procedure: Written Representations
Development: leisure-sport · Change of use
Inspector: Williamson J

Main issues, as the Inspector framed them

Whether there are any sequentially preferable sites within or on the edge of Kirkby town centre

What decided it

The significant economic and social benefits of bringing a long-vacant, unmarketable site back into productive use, combined with job creation and social value obligations, outweighed the failure to satisfy the sequential test for town centre uses.

Framework references: 86, 87, 88, 91, 57

Plan policies cited: Policy CS1, Policy CS4, Policy CS6, Policy CS10, Policy EC6, Policy CS2, Policy CS27

Read the decision letter on the Inspectorate’s site

The main issues and the deciding factor are read from the published letter by Town Planner Pro; the letter itself is the record. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Research, not advice.

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What an account adds

Draw a red line around your site and the appraisal follows.
- Heritage. Listed buildings by grade and distance, conservation areas, scheduled monuments, registered parks and gardens, heritage at risk.
- Landscape and environment. Green belt, national parks and national landscapes, SSSIs, ancient woodland, SPA, SAC and Ramsar sites, nutrient catchments.
- Flooding. Flood zones 2 and 3, surface water, and both again with climate change.
- Transport. The 800 metre station catchment and service frequency, bus stops with their weekday frequency, the cycle network, and the Framework’s transport tests measured for the site.
Then the development plan position, the housing land supply as an Inspector last accepted it, and every appeal decided around the site with its letter.
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