Planners came under fire as affordable apartments with less than the required standard space were given the thumbs up. Salford’s planning committee approved the development of a nine-storey block with a community centre on the ground floor and 35 apartments above at St Mary’s Road, Eccles. But 24 of the flats fall short of the Nationally Described Space Standards (NDSS), but are within 93 per cent of the required standard. A report to the planning and transportation regulatory panel said: “It is considered that delivering a scheme with 100pc affordable housing outweighs the impact of not fully meeting the NDSS, or the accessibility building regulation requirement M4(2) by a small margin. Councillor Bob Clarke said it was nice to see affordable homes and a community area, but on the negative side: “Did the architect lose interest?” Referring to the design of the block, he said: “It’s appalling. The other thing I don’t understand how it doesn’t meet national space standards when it’s a new build. How is that possible? Chair Councillor Phil Cusack said although the apartments didn’t meet the NDSS, ‘they were close’. Councillor Karen Garrido responded: “How do you mean ‘close’. If there is a standard and we are not adhering to that standard and a further 11 are not meeting the full M4(2) standard, so [how is it that] not one of them is meeting the required standard. “It’s not like we’re trying to fit apartments into an old building. It’s a new building, we know what the standards are, or the developer should know what the standards are, why are we agreeing to this?” Planning officer Anthony Stephenson said: “Fundamentally, the standards are there to ensure that there is appropriate space to meet the space of different individuals living in the properties. “That same policy does recognise that there are some cases when those space requirements are not [necessarily] appropriate. One example of this is affordable housing.” He said the shortfall was ‘not significant’. Mr Stephenson added: “We should also recognise that this scheme has been in development for a significant amount of time and the original pre-application came through the system before these policies were formulated. “We have to recognise there is an evolution in schemes.” Councillor Garrido responded: “If someone has got to live in an affordable house, I can’t accept that because it’s affordable it’s not going to meet some standards.” “They are entitled to have a home which is up to standard, whether they’re buying or renting it. I don’t want to hear that because it’s affordable, it doesn’t really matter. It does matter. “It matters to me that we are asking people to live in a house or flat which isn’t up to standard. They may have had to have 34 or 33 apartments to get them the right size on this site.” Chair of the panel Councillor Phil Cusack said it was up to councillors to decide whether the affordable element outweighs the apartments not quite meeting the space standards. Councillor Jane Hamilton seconded a proposal by Councillor Mike McCusker to accept the application but added: “I take the points made by Councillor Garrido and I think more clarity is needed on these issues.” The panel voted in favour of acceptance.
