Plans have been submitted for a whopping 377 flats which will replace old office buildings in Bracknell.
The developers S2 Limited want to demolish the seven office buildings at Bracknell Beeches and replace them with a total of 377 flats, spread across seven tower buildings.
Of these, 327 would be private and 50 would be affordable, making a 13 per cent affordable housing offer. The majority of the flats, 200, would be two-bedroomed, 160 would be one-bedroom flats and 17 would be studio apartments.
All of these homes would be contained within the seven new tower blocks.
READ MORE: A look at the plan to build 169 flats and offices at Bracknell's former bus station
The tallest of these, Building D, will be 16 storeys high. Buildings A, B C, will be connected, ranging from five to seven storeys. Buildings F and G will also be connected, and will be seven to eight storeys tall, and finally Building E will be nine storeys tall.
The detached buildings, D and E, would have the most flats contained in them. Building D would contain 120 apartments, and building E would have 63. Building F would have 50 flats, Buildings C and G would have 43 flats each, Building B would have 30 and A would have the least at 28.
Bracknell Beeches is currently made up of old two-storey office buildings, situated in Old Bracknell Lane West, which can be accessed from the southbound exit of Bracknell train station.
The plan includes 420 car parking spaces for the new residents, and four spaces for a ‘Car Club’ which involves registering for a club which allows access to a locally parked cars, with a member paying the minute, hour or day.
Of the parking spaces, 44 will be wheelchair accessible, constituting 10 per cent of the parking spaces included in the plan, and 20 per cent will be active for electric vehicle charging.
A massive 672 bicycle parking spaces would be provided for cyclists.
Another key element of the plan is the change to the station access, which would involve getting rid of the existing pedestrian bridge and having a flat entrance to the station instead.
The station currently has two pedestrian bridges going across it, and one of these would be retained so passengers can go between each platform. People living at Bracknell Beeches would live closest to the westbound line to Wokingham and Reading.
The number of flats for the Bracknell Beeches development has evolved several times. In November last year, the developers were seeking to build 420 flats. These plans proved relatively popular at a pre-application consultation, with the caveat that the houses be affordable.
However S2 Limited has revised its plans down. Its earliest proposals in November 2019 were for 592 homes, which was revised down three times (first down to 454, then to 420, and finally down to 377).
S2 is seeking full planning approval for the scheme.
You can observe the plans in full by typing planning reference number 21/00701/FUL into Bracknell Forest Council’s planning portal: https://planapp.bracknell-forest.gov.uk/online-applications/.
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