Dear Julian,

Clive has had a look at the revised drawings for 69 High Street, Hythe (Rear Outbuildings) and comments as follows:

This is a revised scheme which now composes of three dwellings (previously four) with the timber outhouse at the rear now used as a communal bin and cycle store for the three houses. This takes the pressure off of the central courtyard and the plans now show this to be retained in its current form with “the courtyard fully retained and protected during the construction works, restoration to follow to affected areas such as the removal of concrete steps”.

In general terms, this is a significant improvement over the previous scheme which Clive criticised as far too dense, causing the loss of the yard surfaces and unsatisfactory dominance of compounds for the cycles and bins.

The arrangement at first floor level also works well with the first floor of the timber building converted to an open plan kitchen at a mezzanine level between the ground and first floor of house no1.

Apart from this, the design of the conversion and upward extension of the Dental Street frontage building remains unchanged from the previous proposals. Checking back on Clive’s previous comments, he had a number of significant concerns over the design of the conversion.

He had some general concerns over the increased scale of this building, by comparison with its neighbour to the east which is only a single storey outbuilding with a low tiled roof and with an eaves only 2m over street level. Clive has had a detailed look at this and considers that the concern over the scale is partly due to the overgenerous design heights of the proposal which suggest a 2.85m floor to floor height (ground to first) and 2.65 (first to second floor). If these could both be reduced to say 2.55m (2.3m floor to ceiling plus 0.25 floor thickness) for both stories, this would reduce the eaves height by 400mm which would make the building less overbearing. The visual appearance will also be helped if the boarding of the upper storey is raised up by about 150mm leaving a brick soldier course over both door and window openings. At the rear, the boarding should also be raised 150mm higher, leaving the two courses of c19th red brick showing, covering only the modern yellow brickwork above.

Other concerns about the design expressed previously also still stand. These include:

• The use of gable facia boards with “club foot” ends – These should be omitted in favour of a simple verge detail with no barge board
• The design of the gable dormers, which are too large with over-thick dormer cheeks and half-timber gables – These should be redesigned as simpler, smaller dormers
• The use of a projecting window at ground floor and projecting shutters and glazed balustrades at first floor level – The building is very close to Dental Street and questions their practicality as they may be damaged by passing vehicles
• The extent of glazing to the inner roof slopes – It is not clear from the drawings whether these are simply velux rooflights or the more complex velux balcony rooflight sets. Either way, there is too much glazing in this roof slope and the area of rooflights need to be reduced significantly down to a smaller proportion of the roof area
• The materials used in the external cladding need to be confirmed – White painted featheredge boarding is acceptable but this may prove not to be possible on the external elevations facing the road and adjacent properties due to the requirement for minimising spreader flame on or adjacent to boundaries as part of the building regulations.

The other points made in Clive’s comments of May 2017 still stand and we need more detail of the external appearance of the rear outbuilding which currently is now shown in elevation and we also need more information the structural practicalities of the conversion and upward extension of the rear Dental Street building. We will also need an archaeologically correct survey of the yard pavings, showing it “as existing” and with details of the areas of making good of surfaces (this could possibly be handled as a condition).

Other suggested conditions could be:

• Details of the construction of eaves, verges, dormers – scale 1:5 or 1:10
• Details of the joinery of existing upgraded and new windows and doors – scale 1:1 or 1:2
• Cast iron rainwater goods
• Details of all vents, flues and outlets
• Samples of materials – weatherboarding cladding, roof tile

Kind regards

Chenice

Anthony Swaine

ARCHITECTURE LTD

The Bastion Tower

16 Pound Lane

Canterbury

CT1 2BZ

01227 462680

info@anthonyswaine.co.uk

www.anthonyswaine.co.uk

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