Homes plan backed for former hospital site

Councillors approved detailed plans by Bellway Homes for 103 homes on the former Princess Royal Hospital site, in east Hull, which is owned by Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust.

The hospital closed in 2008 after cancer treatment was transferred to the new cancer centre at Castle Hill, near Cottingham. Forestry officials asked for a condition on the planning to protect trees which bound the nine-acre site on all sides during construction.

The plans involve 79 detached and 24 semi-detached properties. The trust also put in a separate application renewing the outline planning permission the scheme already has, for another three years, in case development does not take place straight away.

At the same meeting, a riverside housing development was knocked back because of flaws in the design and layout. Engineering firm C Spencer is looking to build 88 houses on what used to be the publicly-owned Island Wharf site facing the River Humber. The firm acquired the land, together with their head office at 1 Humber Quays, from the now defunct regional development agency, Yorkshire Forward.

The developers claim the mixed use scheme originally envisaged, which included offices and a hotel, is not deliverable in the current economic climate. But councillors backed planners’ recommendation of refusal, which cited 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”.

The committee’s chairman, Coun Sean Chaytor, said: “The problem is when the Government decides to sell something off cheap the developer can do what he likes subject to planning permission. We believe the general principle of residential development is acceptable, but objections were raised on the basis of design and layout.”