Case Study: Pearce’s Yard

Varsity Town Planning is regularly called upon to deal with the suitability of proposed developments. All too often applications are made which may work well on paper but would have significantly negative impacts for those living nearby.

One such scheme was proposed for Pearce’s Yard in the Oxfordshire town of Thame. Our clients live in a heritage property backing on to the site of a former agricultural merchants.

Their home in connected to a vacant pole barn, which is in third party ownership.

Pearce’s Yard is a brownfield site and our clients both welcome and acknowledge it’s redevelopment. Varsity Town Planning were engaged to ensure that aspects of their amenity were respected during any redevelopment scheme.

We first got involved when an application was advanced for a large, 70 bed Care Home on the site.

We concurred with our client’s concerns regarding many points of this proposed development including:

• The three storey elements of the scheme
• Overlooking of their property
• Location and quantity of staff car parking areas
• Quality of boundary treatments
• Uncertain plans for the pole barn

The application was subsequently refused by South Oxfordshire District Council.

A further application was submitted in 2022 for a residential development.

We again made representations on behalf of our client seeking to ensure that they could continue to enjoy a good level of amenity within their property. We also raised a number of land ownership issues which needed addressing.

A decision is awaited from South Oxfordshire District Council.

SODC Application Refs: P21/SO644/FUL and P22/S4155/FUL