‘Shipping container’ Millionaire’s Row plan gets green light

Architects had been sent back to the drawing board

The owners of a house in Torquay’s up-market ‘Millionaire’s Row’ can build an extension despite claims that it will look like a ‘shipping container’.

An application for 43 Thatcher Avenue – a street where the average price of a house is £1.7million – came back before Torbay Council’s planning committee this week after architects made changes.

Planners deferred a decision last month because they were unhappy with the size of the ‘observation room’ extension, which will have spectacular views across Tor Bay. Architects were sent back to the drawing board and asked to come up with thinner floors and ceilings to reduce the overall size.

Councillors saw photographs of a three-dimensional model of the extension, although some wanted the model to have been made available so they could inspect it in person. But they were told the council’s constitution wouldn’t allow that. 

Planning officers recommended approval after the designers took half a metre off the overall size of the planned extension as well as making changes to windows so neighbours aren’t overlooked.

Neighbour Kevin Salter, who spent £3,000 having the model made, said residents were still concerned about the size of the extension and feared losing their privacy. And, he said, residents did not feel the view from one property should be enjoyed at the expense of others.

He said the observation room looked like a shoe box on top of the building.

Dr Rodney Horder of the Torquay Neighbourhood Plan Forum went further “The tendency to replace pitched roofs with structures that look like shipping containers is detrimental to the street scene,” he said. 

But Sean Davey of PMR Architecture said there were already four nearby houses with similar ‘pod-like’ structures.

Cllr Adam Billings (Con, Churston with Galmpton) said although he understood residents’ concerns, the revised plans dealt with the height and mass issue that led him to propose deferring the plans last time.