Planning Response Belle Vue House

DC/23/03449 | Full Planning Application - Conversion and restoration of Belle Vue House

The Sudbury Society supports this planning application

 The Sudbury Society was pleased to learn that at long last Belle Vue House has a new owner: local heritage developer McCabe & Abel. Their plans are to return the house to its original use: residential which is an ideal solution in that its future maintenance will be the responsibility of private owners. When built in 1872 for Sudbury solicitor Henry Crabb Canham, it was a single family home. This time it will be two family dwellings. Fortuitously, the house lends itself to this arrangement with the minimum of alteration needed both inside and out. No trees will be felled and nothing except ugly 1960s portacabin-type buildings will be demolished.

 The Sudbury Society would very much like to see planning permission be granted to allow McCabe & Abel to begin the transformation in the near future. Their plans demonstrate their experience of converting and restoring old buildings sympathetically yet practically but retaining historical details to maintain character and give them a new life. Belle Vue House deserves this chance and must not be denied it due to some minor point or technicality.

 However, there is just one thing that could be improved: the placing of decorative boundary railings along the terrace at the back of the house overlooking the park. The railings need to be at the edge of the terrace at the top of the grass slope, not close up to the house which would undoubtedly prompt the comment both now and in future, "Why aren't the railings at the edge of the paved terrace?" followed at some point in time by moving them to the edge of the terrace. A house like this needs space around it to show it off (to potential purchasers?) and decorative railings at a comfortable distance from the building would do that. This would be totally lost if it were hemmed in by railings close to the house.   The 'loss' of a strip of the terrace will make no difference at all to Belle Vue Park.

 Apart from that, the proposed plans and elevation drawings look extremely good, workable and in-keeping with the surroundings making Belle Vue House the centre of attraction in the park as it was originally in 1872.