16/03096/FUL

7 Old Road Headington Oxford OX3 7JY

9 January 2017

Change of Use from dwellinghouse (Use Class C3) to House in Multiple Occupation (Use Class C4)

The location of this property on a busy urban road connecting a major site of employment to the city means that any increase in vehicle use is unacceptable. Exclusion from entitlement of occupiers to parking permits in the prevailing CPZ should thus be required. Such exclusion increases the probability of the desirable outcome of bicycle use, but the bicycle storage arrangements shown are inadequate in number, awkward to use and no design details are provided.

The floor plans supplied with this application show no scale bar and no dimensions, hence it is impossible to assess compliance with minimum space requirements of City Council policy. However, the toilet and washing facilities shown are clearly completely inadequate for 6 bedrooms, some of which may have two-person occupancy. Of the two w.c.s proposed, one is located in a room of less than 1.0sqm, with no hand wash facility. The other is in a room of approximately 2.0sqm, which accommodates a shower and a wash basin; its use is obstructed by the wash basin, the only hand-washing facility in the premises, and there is no space for standing to dry etc. outside the shower cubicle. Another small shower cubicle is provided in a room of approximately 1.1sqm, containing no other sanitary facilities, but so small that there is no standing space outside the shower cubicle. All these facilities are on the ground floor, separated from the four bedrooms on the first floor. These arrangements are clearly not satisfactory. We recommend that this application be refused.