As part of our continuing relationship with McCarthy Stone, Planning Potential secured full planning permission in 2025 for a new retirement living development on the site of a former public house and bowling green in Dawley, Telford
With previous consents on-site for two different retirement and care led facilities respectively, the site's development potential was not achieved owing to those permissions not being deliverable or viable. Key to the failure of these permissions being realised was the retention of a protected sycamore tree towards the middle of the site, ultimately rendering the schemes unattractive to the previously identified end users.
However, through pre-submission discussions and engagement with relevant stakeholders, Planning Potential were able to profile the nuanced benefits of McCarthy Stone's bespoke retirement living model being proposed in this location and get the Council to agree to the removal of the historically retained protected tree, in turn unlocking the full redevelopment potential of this prominent, vacant brownfield site.
Through an iterative design process with officers and the consultant team, notably including (but not limited to) landscape and ecology to ensure the perceived harm from the removal of the tree could be sufficiently offset, and highways to demonstrate the site's sustainability credentials, we were able to address all planning & material considerations. Coupled with the identified local need for specialist accommodation to help meet the needs of an aging population and the wider benefits associated, we successfully demonstrated that the proposals complied with all relevant national and local planning policies.
Principles of brownfield regeneration; housing delivery; meeting the most acute housing needs; place-making and good design were all at the heart of the proposal and are core themes of the NPPF, which ultimately helped secure planning approval under delegated powers.
