Decision on former Wells police station redevelopment delayed

Churchill Retirement Living has submitted plans to convert an old police station into 47 retirement flats

A decision on whether a former police station can be developed has been delayed due to concerns over parking.

Churchill Retirement Ltd hopes to turn the site in Wells, Somerset, into 47 retirement apartments on the A39 Glastonbury Road.

Somerset Council's planning committee discussed the plans on 5 March but decided to resume talks in May.

Councillor Bente Height said: "The equivalent of half a car parking space per dwelling is ridiculous".

"We are treating them as second-class citizens and that's not good enough - it is indecent to humanity," she added.

The police station operated at the site before it moved to a new facility inside the fire station on Burcott Road in late-2021.

The decision was also pushed back to allow negotiation over contributions for new affordable homes elsewhere in the city, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The developer of the site plans to sell 31 one-bedroom and 16 two-bedroom flats at full market price to the over 60s. It originally offered to contribute £434,000 towards affordable housing schemes but this has been revised down to £100,000.

The company said viability issues including the phosphates crisis and high inflation within the construction industry limited how much affordable housing could be delivered at the site.

Somerset Council's planning committee voted to defer a decision by a margin of eight votes to one, with one abstention.