Author: James Gould

Boast Architects is pleased to announce that planning approval has recently been obtained for the restoration and conversion of a Grade II listed building at 1-3 St Peter’s Street in St. Albans. Following close collaboration with St. Albans District Council’s planning and conservation officers, the approved design will optimise the number and size of new apartments while limiting the impact of the alterations on the original historic fabric of the building. The first and second floors which were formally offices will be converted into four new apartments and there will be two further duplex apartments in a new extension at the rear of the property on Spencer Street. The existing shops at ground level on the St Peter’s Street frontage will be retained and remodelled to facilitate the conversion of the upper floors to residential use. Externally, the listed building will be carefully restored with the primary elevations of the listed building being largely unchanged. The extension is designed to complement the listed building and blend into the historic character of Spencer Street. We hope to remain involved in this prestigious project in 2020 by discharging pre-commencement planning conditions and going on to prepare information for tender and construction.

Following planning difficulties over a number of years with schemes by previous architects, Boast Architects and JB Planning Associates have combined with the client to finally gain planning approval in June 2019. Being in Green Belt and close to a local wildlife site, the appearance, larger size and increased height of the replacement dwelling were among the concerns which had to be resolved in the design. The existing house is a converted bungalow and the challenge in the design was to significantly improve the standard of the new first floor accommodation with only the marginal increase in ridge height and building volume. Despite these constraints, a much better layout of bigger bedrooms and bathrooms has now been achieved. We have now been appointed to submit a Building Regulations application as the next step in the exciting process of helping the client to realise their long-held ambitions on this secluded site outside Hertford.

Planning permission has been granted for 15 new dwellings, including 5 affordable units, and a replacement for the existing village shop and post office on the site of a former garden centre in Chipperfield conservation area. Marchfield Homes and their design team worked closely with local residents and the parish council to ensure a sympathetic relationship between the new development and surrounding homes. The layout and design evolved from our own character study of the conservation area, Dacorum Borough Council’s Character Assessment and Chipperfield’s Village Design Statement. This informed building scale and use of traditional architectural features and materials. Dwellings range from 2 bedroom cottages to 4 and 5 bedroom detached houses and there are 2 apartments above the village store. As residents were sensitive about the new building on the Chapel Croft frontage, in order to allay their concerns, we produced before and after photo-montage images to demonstrate the appropriateness of its scale relative to existing properties.

An application for 26 affordable houses at Northaw Park was submitted to Welwyn Hatfield Council in June 2019. There are 50 homes in the area already and the proposed development will add 15 three-bedroom and 11 two-bedroom houses in response to the need for affordable housing in surrounding rural areas. The dwellings are two-storey in scale and relatively low in density to reflect the site’s semi-rural location. They will be traditional in design and use of materials to sympathise with the local architectural character of Hook Lane and elsewhere in Northaw. The applicant is Watford Community Housing, a Hertfordshire-based housing association whose priority is to provide better homes and friendlier communities.