Retirement scheme rejected

8:30am Wednesday 28th March 2007

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PLANS to build a retirement community, gymnasium and swimming pool on the King Harry Lane playing fields were thrown out on Monday night.

Members of St Albans District Council's plans central committee unanimously rejected the application for outline planning application, with protesters calling the move a "victory for common sense".

The vacant fields form part of an eight-hectare site and were used by St Albans School as a private sports ground until July 2002, when it moved its sporting activities to Woollam Playing Fields, in Harpenden Road.

The joint application between Hallam Land Management (HLM) and Blanchworth Care Ltd proposed to build 65 age-restricted homes for people over 55 years old. This would have included seven four-bedroomed houses, 26 three-bedroomed ones and 32 two-bedroomed units.

There were also plans to build 45 one and two-bedroomed extra-care or assisted-living flats and a two-storey 40-bedroomed care home on the greenfield site. As well as 16 key worker one-bedroomed flats, the site would also include a day centre, hairdressing and therapy rooms.

Speaking after the meeting, Barrie Mort, chairman of Verulam Residents' Association, who has campaigned against the development, said: "I think that it's a victory for common sense. The councillors were not being taken in by the so-called retirement community', which was really a means for the developers to get a foot in the door on the site."

He claimed that the site was hardly a "retirement scenario", with more than half of the plans dedicated to 65 houses with three and four bedrooms.

* See this week's St Albans Observer for the full story on the King Harry Lane playing fields application.