A planning application P18/V0492/FUL has been submitted for the Old Gaol ground floor.
Originally in 2008 when Cranbourne Homes became the successful bidder, against other schemes, the complex included two restaurants and a shop. The public feedback back than in 2008 was that there were a number of empty shops in Abingdon and so the plans were changed to three restaurants.
One restaurant area became a Costa. The other two are still vacant and, according to the planning application, the letting agent says ‘that larger multiple restaurant chains have not bought into the location of The Old Gaol …’ So the management company have put in a planning application for a change of use. This would involve converting one restaurant space into flats, and running the other themselves as a cafe / wine bar.
Some initial comments on this were made on the March 3rd edition of this Blog.
I suppose most are just waiting for the news that CH has given The Vale the run-around once more. Unfit for purpose yet again.
I think the town has become accustomed, Newcomer, to the fact that no matter what anyone says or does or thinks, Abingdons favoured builder will get exactly what THEY want!
Still no willow tree replacement I notice….?
Clearly, CH and their commercial agent (Fleurets) were never serious about finding restaurant tenants. If they were serious, wouldn’t it have made sense to send out a questionnaire to the Abingdon population asking us which, from a list of restaurant operators, would we prefer and support? With this result, they could go to that operator and state that there is a market ready & waiting for them. A result within 6 months, I would estimate. Alternatively, they could just twiddle their thumbs for 2 years and see if anyone wants to take on an unfinished building site with no facilities!
Sold down the river again. Abingdon is losing it’s soul more and more each day š
I predicted this a long time ago… apparently, the “restaurants” have no kitchen facilities, in fact are just bare shells. However, any interested parties are told that they have to fit them out at their own cost, only to find that they are on a very short lease! Meaning that in actual fact, even if there were a great deal of interest from the towns people, it would not be commercially viable to undertake the huge fit-out costs involved, as they would never have the time to recoup the cost!
a cynical person might think that this was the plan all along….”Oh dear, look, we have tried awfully hard to lease these units, but no-one is interested….please can we now turn them into mega-bucks apartments, so that we can make even more money form the hapless, incompetent council”!
I agree. I think this is a disgrace. It seems obvious that they have priced it out of the market and then played a waiting game. I do not accept that it is impossible to let a prime riverside spot in a large affluent town in one of the wealthiest parts of the country.
If they cant rent it out then they should give it to the council free of charge. I’m sure they’d soon find a tenant then. Or maybe turn the empty units into a cinema I hear that’s quite a popular idea too.
Make the units into social housing.
Restaurants are closing everywhere. Unless the offer is very special, eating out is on the wane. It’s not as though Abingdon is short of places to get fat already.
Just noted that Abingdon First has written to our MP regarding this issue and its wider context.
Never mind the hard luck stories, make them pay up the money we are owed, then perhaps their gripes could be addressed.
Iām sorry but who votes these councillors in. Yes itās the people Of Abingdon and yes you vote the MP in
Both approve this shambles
You reap what you sow!
Perhaps they could turn it into an Old Gaol!
Abingdon voters only have direct influence on a small number of the planning committee members. Most of them are from other parts of the Vale.
the planning committee are: Cllrs Sandy Lovatt (chair, represents Abingdon), Janet Shelley, Robert Hall (represents Abingdon), Jenny Hannaby, Anthony Hayward, Bob Johnson, Ben Mabbett, Chris McCarthy, Catherine Webber.
So only two Planning Committee members represent Abingdon Wards and can be directly voted on by Abingdon residents.
But, davidofLuton, we don’t have any say on which Abingdon councilors are appointed to plum jobs on the Planning Committee, nor how good they are at making Abingdon’s case. Considering that the money raised by most planning ‘adventures’ goes into The Vale’s coffers the majority the Planning Committee has a bias toward selling off Abingdon’s assets to the highest bidder … it’s not their fault if the developer wants to renege on the deal … what could these poor souls do about that?
Thanks for naming The Guilty ;0)
Time to bring back ye olde stocks, methinks….let the peasants show their true feelings towards these (at best) inept individuals! Ā£1 a tomato….we would have enough money to sort out the traffic, build a new river crossing, demolish the guildhall, build a new school, doctors surgery, monorail, and build a purpose built cinema/arts centre, within two weeks!
I think we need to put this into some kind of perspective….
Abingdon is doing just fine. Highstreets across the land are having a really bad time…and just because there are some – and arguably a growing number – that are managing to buck that trend and become really successful….there are plenty that are really bad… So, we are only being’ the same’ or as equally bad as the others or as what’s already out there….which isn’t that bad, considering “it’s the taking part that counts”…not the “being good”. Don’t be good….imagine how that’ll make all the other failing highstreets feel if we were to join the merry band of towns that’s “doing well”!?
Far better to stick with the majority and not upset the status quo.
As I’ve said before, it’s almost on a monthly basis that there’s a busy bustly day in Abingdon…..
Ah the ubiquitous councillor Sandy Lovatt, chair of planning and self appointed district council member on the advisory board of the under investigation Abingdon B I D . What a track record eh? Think Iām right in saying he lost his seat on the county council for failing to argue the case against the north Abingdon 900 house development on behalf of his constituents?
I go back a long way in the fight over the Old Gaol and I am not sure that blaming the current Planning Councillors for what went before makes a lot of sense.
The decision to sell to CH was not taken by the planners, but by the then Cabinet members and officers, and the broad outline of the development was determined at that stage – the planning application closely followed what had been in the sale bid. Similarly, it was not the planners who negotiated the subsequent changes in the commercial arrangement.
Other areas where we have complained about CH have been over things like the willow trees – as far as I know those never went to the Planning Committee but were dealt with (or not) by the officers.
Re the recent application from CH to reschedule their payments – do we know that that has been accepted or is that just an assumption? I heard a rumour (unconfirmed) that it had been refused.
But yes, let’s lobby the current Planning Councillors to try to achieve the right outcome (whatever that might be?) to the application they have in front of them.
Hester, I would be very interested to know
a) What the other bidders thought about the subsequent revised bid(s) that were accepted from CH?
b) Was CH original bid so far and above what the other bidders proposed, that their reduced proposal(s) were still better than the others? (If it WAS so much higher, did they put in a vastly inflated bid, knowing full well they would get a reduction accepted?) (Possible criminal “insider dealing” if so?
c) Why, when CH asked to reduce the amount payable, was it not refused or put out to tender again?
By the way. The window for replanting the mature willow was December – March. (December 2016 – March 2017!!!) That was when the council expected it to be planted by…
Hester I donāt think anyone is niave enough to lay the blame for the Old Gaol fiasco firmly at the door of the planning office, that said there are/were conditions in the approved plans that have clearly not been adhered to, (riverside acces is just one) and for what ever reason planners have turned a blind eye and that they cannot deny.
Next to consider is the nuts and bolts of the deal, for sure the Trevor Osbourne bid ( he off mal maison fame) was never even opened and that was a decision taken ultimately by councillors via recommendation from officers!
So just who is responsible ? Well someone at the vale handed over the deeds to the property before they/weāve been paid for, and thatās a fact, how is this detrimental to us?
Have a look on company house and search either CH or Old Gaol and you will find some of the properties within the development have been remortgaged by the developer, in short it
Means theyāve raised finance against property they havenāt paid for, Hester is correct when she says planners shouldnāt take all the blame, then to add insult to injury they have the nerve to apply for a delay in payments when theyāre renting out out and remortgaging property they havenāt paid for and councillors must shoulder much of the
blame for us, yes us, being totally shafted
DD, I think the issue is that either they are so stupid and inept that they didn’t realise, or they think that we are. It’s either one, or the other. Neither is particularly good. But as long as we stare, satisfactorily at the pretty flowers… hopefully no-one will make a fuss.
Deedee
You and others know far more than I about the financial side of this so I will leave that side of the argument to you and will be concentrating my efforts on the planning side and trying to ensuring enforcement of the access and tree commitments.
But I do think that we will all have more chance of being listened to and taken seriously if we stick to the facts, so can I just correct a couple of the points in your last post: a) the Trevor Osbourne bid most certainly was opened – it was one of the 4 shortlisted and b) the access obligations have mostly been met, in the letter if not the spirit – I checked them out last week. There is access to the garden via the path along the riverside from Bridge Street and from the garden through the alleyway into the courtyard. The ones that are missing are the route round the back of the building and the route FROM the courtyard to the garden. However I am very concerned that we will lose much of this if the apartments go ahead and will be fighting that one.
By the way, various people are describing these as luxury apartments – if you look closely at the plans and then go for a walk into the riverside garden you will see that a) they are absolutely tiny, b) the bedrooms mostly have no real windows, just small high-level ones which look out at ground level onto a pedestrian walkway) even if public access to the garden in front of them is refused there will be people in the adjacent wine bar garden and d) the larger apartment – including the bedroom – shares a party wall with the wine bar!
Not my idea of luxury.
Hester…i bet they will be luxury priced though! As i understood it too, people already living there pay an extra charge that is to pay for the priveleges of having riverside restaurants on site…I hope they ask for a refund of all of those charges?
CH are seeking ‘retrospective consent’ for dividing up the internal space with breeze block walls – application P18/V0493/LB on the Vale web-site – to make the flats.
In other words, they’ve already done the work. Anyone who’s interested can go and have a look for themselves – it’s plainly visible from the riverside garden, which you can get into via the gate by the bridge.
The Old Gaol is a listed building. CH know this very well. Doing works to a listed building without getting permission first is a criminal offence – I’m told that the maximum penalty is two years imprisonment or an unlimited fine (or both).
Razzy Dent – The maximum penalty might be 2 years but they are dealing with the Veil here so itāll be more like āyeah, do what yer like mateāā¦ āchange the repayment terms, no problemāā¦ ādonāt pay us back at all, carry on itās not our moneyāā¦ GRRR!!!
Hester – re. access – the issue that annoys people in south Abingdon is that when the plans were originally put forward, we were promised direct access through the site from East St Helen St.
This was part of their ‘selling’ of the plans.
This was later negotiated down (wrongly in my view) to access during daylight hours, massively reducing the benefit.
That access is still there, if you happen to know about it, but is far from obvious if you don’t.
Well that’s no surprise then is it. The Old Gaol was meant to have public access and I guessed from the start that would never happen – its always the ‘same old, same old’.
Same was sold to the public when the Abingdon Marina was built and we were promised public access, a restaurant and a chandlery. All I see there is housing.
As the saying goes ……. I told you so.