Eight-person HMO at 68 Montgomerie Road, Southsea

“The site is approximately 300m from Fratton Local Centre, where there are a range of shops, leisure, employment and services, and local buses, and 100m from Fawcett Road…”

“Montgomerie Road is a residential road with bus stops and local amenities in close proximity along Winston Churchill Road and Victoria Road North. It is not considered that size of development would lead to a material impact to the function of the highway or result in any unacceptable safety impact. There may be increase instances of vehicles hunting for space in the vicinity, this is however an issue of residential amenity for your consideration of the application.”

“Loss of services such as water, sewerage, electricity, gas etc. • Pressure on public facilities such as Hospitals, GPs, Dentists, etc • Parking concerns • Environmental and amenity loss • Applications being considered on a case by case basis, instead of their cumulative impact • Loss of community character • Cycle storage is not evidenced as a mitigation for increased car use • Council must adopt a management plan for HMOs and their use…”

“Members' Comments In discussion, members made the following comments:”

“To be consistent, if other applications today were refused for breaching the 10% limit, then the application should also be refused. Under the emerging Local Plan members could give moderate weight to the emerging Local Plan but there was such a high concentration of HMOs in the area, for example, seven HMOs next to each other, the harm outweighed the benefits. The HMO threshold in the area, known locally as the "ladder of roads", was exceeded by about 60 to 70%.”

“RESOLVED that the application be refused for the following reasons - the proposal would constitute over-intensification of development by increasing the number of occupants from five to eight; outdoor space is inadequate for the proposed number of occupants; it would not satisfy the policy of the emerging Local Plan on increasing occupancy in areas already over the 10% threshold for HMOs; it would not meet the policy on mitigation for Special Protection Areas.”

“That planning permission be granted, subject to satisfactory completion of a legal agreement to secure:”

“(a) the mitigation of the impact of the proposed residential development on Solent Special Protection Areas (recreational disturbance and nitrates) by securing the payment of a financial contribution…”