Car Park
It is very rare that a planning application comes in for a major new development which we can wholeheartedly approve. The scheme is for the redevelopment of the old brewery site at the western end of Queen Street, which has for some years been a ground level car park for the historic dockyard.
The new scheme is sponsored by the Portsmouth Naval Base Property Trust and designed by David Richmond and Partners, who won an architectural competition to design. We were given a preview by the Trust, developers, Crest Nicholson (South) and the architect. The scheme is for a two deck car park surrounded by apartments, with an enclosed garden on top of the car parks and accompanied on the Queen street side by an elegant 23 storey point block. The blocks of flats are not in straight lines but are nicely serrated to give a sparkling textured appearance to the whole development. The ground floor of the car park will serve the Dockyard as does the existing one and the upper floor will serve the residents of the 540 units of housing which will be of varying sizes from single room upwards.
The only thing to be said against the scheme is sadly that it involves demolition of a an eighteenth century listed house in Admiralty Road. How about rebuilding it in the Dockyard?!
RJ