Decision day for waterfront homes

Councillors meet next week to discuss proposals to build 88 houses and a convenience store on the 4.5 acre Island Wharf site, a former publicly-owned regeneration site.

Engineering firm C Spencer acquired the land, together with their head office at 1 Humber Quays, from the now defunct regional development agency Yorkshire Forward.

A design and access statement argues there is plenty of other vacant office and commercial space and the plans offer “a real alternative” to families seeking good quality city centre homes.

It claims the mixed use scheme originally envisaged, which included offices and a hotel, wouldn’t be deliverable in the current economic climate. It says: “It has now become widely accepted as to be unsustainable in its current guise.”

But planners recommend refusal, citing the failure to “give special treatment to this landmark site, in particular through the use of predominantly terraced family housing with limited public open space along the river frontage.”

Labour was fiercely critical of the Government for refusing to allow councils to take ownership of the RDA’s assets.

Commenting on the sale of the offices and land in 2011 Hull and Humber Chamber of Commerce’s president, Howard O’Neill, said: “This is a strategically important site for Hull which the Government should have passed into local ownership.

“Selling off assets like this in a national fire sale is not the best way to get their maximum value or guarantee continued regeneration.”