Gateway tower scheme given go-ahead (From This is Hampshire)

Gateway tower scheme given go-ahead

6:56am Wednesday 7th May 2008 in

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A HEALTHCARE firm is being allowed to build a 14-storey apartment tower and medical centre in Southampton amid accusations of poor consultation with residents.

The landmark tower of 119 apartments, dubbed the City Gateway project, will be built on a car park at the junction of Stoneham Way and Thomas Lewis Way in Swaythling.

It will allow the Stoneham Lane Surgery to move from a cramped practice to new premises alongside a supermarket and pharmacy.

But residents claimed a 513-signature petition of support gathered at the surgery didn't make clear the scale of the development.

And they told city councillors that hundreds of nearby residents were not given notice of an exhibition of the plans nor received letters from the council.

Planning chiefs said they had done more than the statutory requirements.

CareCapital had been given exclusive rights to develop the council's 66-space Parkville Road car park.

It drew up a scheme for 67 onebedroom, 42 two-bedroom and 11 studio flats, with 72 spaces in a basement car park and 25 spaces within a courtyard for the shops and surgery.

The developer had reduced the height of the proposed tower by two storeys after objections from BAA, which owns Southampton Airport. It will be 44m high.

CareCapital executive director Rick Hayes said it would be a "landmark" building that would announce the entrance to the city.

But residents maintained it was too high and didn't include enough family homes or parking spaces.

There were are also concerns about traffic and overspill of parking into surrounding roads and the reprovision of a youth centre.

Councillors gave CareCapital the go-ahead but insisted that community facilities and a "surrogate"

development on the existing surgery site to offset a shortfall in affordable homes be built before the tower block was more than half filled.