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The Heritage Assessment submitted by the developers describe the site as “ ...with residential and commercial developments surrounding” it. This is patently not true. It is in an entirely residential area with just one commercial building - the hotel. The plan should be assessed in the context of a major expansion of that one commercial operation in a purely residential area. |
The groups of houses along the road from Dunstanville through to Stratton Place, Stratton Terrace and Tehidy Terrace has in the Council's 2005 Cornwall and Scilly Urban Survey report been described as "... one of the most impressive waterfront façades in Cornwall" . |
This survey was carried out by a section of Cornwall County Council, and funded by English Heritage, the Objective One Partnership for Cornwall and Scilly and the South West of England Regional Development Agency.
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The same Cornwall and Scilly Urban Survey report (CSUS, 2005) includes a recommendation that there should be an aim to reduce or remove waterfront parking. The developer’s plan increases this substantially, with a very unattractive extension to the roadside parking area for the hotel. It is believed that no planning permission for the construction of the existing smaller roadside parking area in the late 1980s was ever sought, and it was only granted retrospectively as a Coach Park. This new planning application aims to roughly triple this waterfront parking area.
The planning application itself states "....A significant length of vegetation ........ appears to require removal along North Parade to accommodate the car parking area extension. This would lead to a change in the character of a section of the road and river bank and negatively affect views from the road, footpath and river". The proposal then uses weasel words like "should" and "may be possible" in discussing ways that it might be possible to mitigate this.
A further major problem with the parking
proposal is that it will require pile-driving into the green bank. Along with the quite major construction work, which will probably force the closure of the road for a lengthy period, or major traffic and parking restrictions, this piledriving will be within yards of 200 year old listed buildings - what damage will the pile-driving cause to them? |
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The 30 more hotel rooms in the proposal, plus the almost doubled size of the restaurant/function area to 150 covers, plus the removal of the underground parking, is in no way catered for by the proposed increased waterfront parking, and will inevitably exacerbate existing traffic problems and parking along the local roads. The Transport Assessment submitted by the developers states “Public transport is therefore a realistic option for hotel residents and employees as a means of travel to and from the hotel”. This may be true for many of the employees, but guests of a quite expensive hotel simply do not carry or trundle their suitcases over a mile from the nearest railway station. |
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The plan has a 150 seat new restaurant ".... to satisfy the need of increased number of guests but also ... conferences and larger scale events such as weddings”. Local residents know that whenever there is an existing function at the hotel, parking in the nearby area goes from the normally difficult to near impossible, especially when the hotel erects a large marquee on its largest parking area - the quay, as it does every summer, and advertises the space for events. The photo is from the hotel's own website advertising it's availability.
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It is significant that after about 30 years of using the undercover parking area at the hotel almost exclusively for hotel furniture and catering storage, and often keeping the access door locked as seen in this photo, they have in the last few months suddenly marked out the interior with parking spaces and allowed cars to park there. This change appears to have coincided with the submission of this new planning application. |
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Residents of the local area have in the past repeatedly complained to Cornwall Council about the hotel’s non-use of these undercover parking spaces, as the 1989 planning application by the Greenbank Hotel to build this extension to the hotel was approved subject to the construction of this car parking area, and the planning permission stated " .... the said parking spaces shall not thereafter be obstructed or used for any other purpose". They are now hoping to turn this interior space into hotel bedrooms, replacing it with a massive expansion of waterfront parking that will only create an overall gain of 5 parking spaces for 30 more bedrooms and a massively larger restaurant/function capacity. |
The "undercover parking" approved in 1989 and
until 2024 not marked out or used for parking |
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This area is officially designated a CDA - a Critical Drainage Area.
The Greenbank area has long had problems with sewage. In 2000 major work was carried out near the Greenbank Hotel to improve sewerage, but flooding of both sewage and stormwater has remained a persistent problem in the area at times of heavy rain. It is believed that the proposed development will feed the same main sewers, and exacerbate the problem. Similar sewerage problems have also occurred frequently in the Stratton Terrace, Stratton Place and Dunstanville Terrace areas, including directly adjacent to the Greenbank Hotel. |
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The final factor in this proposal is one which does not much immediately affect many Falmouth residents, but will very definitely do so for residents of Flushing and water users. The new much expanded restaurant/function area has a totally modern curved glass-fronted frontage partially extending out over the quay walls. This will make a very incongruous modern addition to a long-standing view of rows of mainly Regency, Georgian and Victorian properties. |
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An earlier planning application by the Greenbank Hotel was rejected on a variety of grounds but primarily to quote from the Council’s Conservation Officer at the time because “...the principle of developing across the waterfront/foreshore was not acceptable in conservation terms because of the detrimental impact it would have on the character and appearance of this part of the Falmouth Conservation area”. |
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ANOTHER WAY?
It is understood that the developers also own the Falmouth Hotel, which is a much larger hotel in a seafront area, in an area with many other medium and large hotels nearby. This would seem a more appropriate location to base a new larger function/conference/restaurant project, being on a very large site with much more space for car parking, and being quite close to a railway station. |
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