18/00643/FUL

8 Arthur Street Oxford OX2 0AS

27 March 2018

Change of use of dwelling house (Use Class C3) to a House of Multiple Occupation (Sui Generis). Provision of bin and cycle store.

OCS believe that the proposal to create a 7 bedroom House of Multiple Occupation from a very small terraced house that has no front garden represents major and unacceptable over-development. Three of the bedrooms are very close to the minimum permitted area of 6.5m² and two more are only approximately 1m² larger than the minimum. The proposal for a shed in the rear garden for storage of the waste and recycling bins and for bicycles, is clearly unsatisfactory and unlikely to be used as large bins and bicycles would have to be wheeled through the house. The application is, however, ambiguous on bicycle storage as the Access Statement states in addition to the rear garden bicycle storage “7 secured covered vertical bicycles storage will be installed close to the front door to encourage the use of bicycles”,  but gives no indication as to where this might be.  We consider the application should be rejected on grounds of over-development of the existing house and totally unacceptable provision of storage for bins and bicycles for 7 inhabitants.