Planners set to reject scheme for flats at Ukrainian club site

Plans have been submitted to Rotherham Council which would involve pulling down the large ”Uke” Ukrainian club in Barleycroft Lane, Dinnington, and build a new three-storey development with dormers to the front.

Five of the flats would have one bedroom, while the rest would have two, and 14 parking spaces would be provided at the site.

According to the applicant, the club is struggling financially and “seven similar community facilities are available in the locality”.

However, 43 letters of objection have been sent to Rotherham Council opposing the plans, most of those through the Dinnington Area Regeneration Trust.

The trust says that Middleton Hall, next to the Ukrainian club, has a right of access over the land, which is used as a fire escape. They therefore say that building flats on the site could block this fire escape route.

Another objector told Rotherham Council that the flats would block sunlight and reduce privacy to their garden, and added: “The development does not contain adequate parking for guests and residents.”

Town planners at the authority have also recommended that the proposals are refused planning permission when they are considered by councillors at a meeting tomorrow.

In the report to go before that meeting, the planning officials say the appearance of the property is “unacceptable” and there are an “excessive number of dormer windows”.

They add that the site “lacks amenity space for residents by way of a garden area or balconies”, access to the rear of the site is “car-dominated” and the courtyard “lacks soft landscaping”.

A number of rooms are said to “not provide acceptable living accommodation”, while a further criticism is that “no details of any renewable technology or green features have been submitted”.

Furthermore, planners say the development at the equivalent of approximately 123 dwellings per hectare is “overdevelopment” and the three-storey building would “tower above the modest Middleton Institute and appear out of character in the streetscene”.

The town planners conclude: “It is recommended that the application be refused planning permission due to its poor overall design, lack of amenity space, landscaping, relationship in the streetscene, harm to neighbouring amenity and inadequate internal size of a number of units.”

At the same planning committee meeting tomorrow, permission is set to be granted for a new “solar farm” on Cumwell Lane in Hellaby to power an existing haulage business.

The field in question, near the M18 motorway, is currently used for the grazing of horses. It is intended that four rows of solar panels would be installed, which together would create an electrical output of 50KW,enough to power nine average households a year.

No letters of objection have been submitted in relation to the plans for the site, which lies in the green belt.

Town planners have advised that the solar farm would “not have a detrimental impact on the openness of the green belt in this location” and have advised that councillors grant planning permission at tomorrow’s meeting.

The planning officials say in their report: “The proposals are considered a temporary use, albeit for potentially 25 years, where the land can be restored back to agricultural in the long term.

“It is considered that the generation of renewable energy, the reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, and all the benefits associated with the reduction in global warming, represent the very special circumstances sufficient to clearly outweigh the harm caused by inappropriate development, including the impact on the openness of the green belt.”