Decision due over ‘prison cell’ flats

A controversial move to build flats redrawn and reduced after being likened to ‘prison cells’ will go before planners again.

The plan would see the former six-bed home in Bromwich Lane in St John’s, Worcester, which is currently divided into a two-bed and a four-bed flat, reconfigured into three one-bed flats.

The plan to reconfigure the building into four one-bed flats and one two-bed flat returned in January but was reduced again following talks with the council over concerns the rooms would still be too small.

This came after an earlier scheme to convert the building into an HMO was turned down for including ‘cell-like’ rooms.

The three proposed flats would each measure 46 square metres – higher than the minimum national standard of 39 square metres for a one-bed, one-person flat.

The application will go before Worcester City Council’s planning committee on October 19 with a recommendation from the council’s planning officers that it is approved.

A conservatory would also be demolished alongside the work, according to the application.

A previous plan by the developer MMFB Properties to turn the building into a six-bed house of multiple occupation (HMO) was thrown out by Worcester City Council’s planning committee last year for including “tiny” and “inappropriate” rooms.

The plan to turn the Bromwich Lane home into an HMO was criticised by the city council’s planning committee when it turned down the application last March – despite the council’s own planning officers recommending the work should be given the green light.

Cllr Alan Amos said the plan was “totally inappropriate” and the council should not be ‘encouraging such nonsense’ – likening the small seven-and-a-half square metre and nine square metre rooms to “rabbit hutches.”

Cllr Owen Cleary was equally as dismissive of the plan saying the proposed rooms barely surpassed the size of a single-person prison cell and Cllr Pat Agar compared the “boxrooms” to tiny flats in crowded Tokyo.