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Developer defends plans to put social homes in blocks serving as a ‘noise buffer’
Developer Lovell has defended itself after sparking an outcry by describing blocks of flats containing most of a proposed Bristol development’s social homes as a “noise buffer” between industry and other housing.
The phrase, used in pre-planning consultation documents for the Novers Hill scheme in the south of the city, has drawn anger from residents and led to local MP Karin Smyth to express her “deep alarm” in a recent letter to Lovell.
The firm wants to build 157 homes, including 36 for social rent and 11 for shared ownership, at Novers Hill, and is due to submit a full planning application shortly.
Its masterplanning documents indicate that around three-quarters of the affordable homes will be in three-storey apartment blocks near the bottom of the sloping site, adjacent to industrial estates and a plot earmarked for a new recycling centre.
A noise assessment conducted on Lovell’s behalf said it was expected that homes within the blocks, and some others overlooking roads, “will require closed windows and alternative ventilation, for example with the use of trickle ventilators”, to achieve acceptable internal noise levels.
“[The] blocks of flats will act as a noise buffer for the rest of the development,” consultation materials added.
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A spokesperson for Lovell said the placement of affordable homes at the site had been agreed with the council and its preferred registered provider as part of pre-application discussions, but will remain under review during the planning process.
Thirty affordable flats are planned in the blocks next to the business park, with Lovell saying the registered provider “has expressed a preference for grouping these for ease of operation and maintenance than being divided across the site”.
It added: “[The] apartment buildings… need to be built on the more level parts of the site, which includes the land closer to the industrial estate.”
“This area of the site is also lower and will help minimise the visual impact from across the valley.
“The apartment buildings will also help reduce any noise from the industrial units during working hours, with additional planting and landscaping to also help with this,” it added. “These measures would help reduce noise in the gardens of some of the other homes.”
The spokesperson said homes in the blocks would not need to have sealed windows and that two-bedroom apartments would have balconies facing away from the industrial area, “so all homes would be high-quality places to live” with “appropriate noise levels for occupants”.
Plans for the Novers Hill site, and for a neighbouring one owned by Bristol City Council’s housing company Goram Homes, have been fiercely opposed by campaigners because they involve building on the Western Slopes, an undeveloped green space valued by local communities.
The mayor of Bristol’s office has recently said it would “take a renewed look” at whether the area should be built on, in the wake of an intervention by local charity Avon Wildlife Trust.
Parts of the Western Slopes were included in the council’s 2014 sites allocation policy, as Ms Smyth’s letter acknowledged, although it added that officers recognised the site’s “citywide importance for nature conservation”.
The Labour MP also listed a series of other concerns, some of which Lovell has recognised, including topography and access, and the extent to which COVID-19 has curtailed opportunities for face-to-face discussions with residents.
“I would be very grateful if you could share with me the outcome of this consultation and any plans for further opportunities for the local community to have their voices heard,” Ms Smyth wrote.
A spokesperson for her office said she had received a standard acknowledgement from Lovell and had nothing to add at present.
