The Majestic House site lies north of Staines High Street, east of the railway bridge, from Mill Mead to Fairfield Avenue, going back almost to the telephone exchange. It used to contain a row of shops and the main Post Office on the High Street frontage. Behind this was a mix of buildings including an office block called Majestic House in memory of the Majestic Cinema which once stood here. In the southwest corner, not included in the development site, are the Garibaldi pub, a shop, and the house and (surprisingly large) garden of no 120 High Street.
The site has a long and complicated planning history, with various planning applications for parts of the site made but not implemented while they were being brought together under the same ownership. Eventually application 06/00884/FUL proposed a large block, 6 or 7 storeys covering the entire site, mostly offices but with ground floor shops along the High Street and 25 flats in the northwest corner. The total floor space would be 35,022sq.m. about 5 times the previous floor-space. There would be parking for 520 cars on three basement floors, with a ramped entrance in Mill Mead, reached by a new road along the back of the site from Fairfield Avenue. The junction of Mill Mead and the High Street would be closed.
This was approved by the Spelthorne B.C. Planning Committee on 25 April 2007. Staines Town Society objected because of the enormous size: over-development, out of scale with its surrounds, increasing traffic congestion by adding about 500 cars to the morning and evening peaks, increasing air pollution in an area already in breach of European safety limits for nitrogen dioxide. The elderly resident of no 120 High Street objected vigorously to the prospect of being almost surrounded by the new building.
This building was not constructed, and the plan was presumably abandoned when the site changed ownership. But the principle of a development of 35,000sq.m. had been conceded, and could not be refused in any subsequent application.
In December 2008 the new owners Deutsche Bank showed plans with a very large building, up to 12 storeys, along the back of the site, an 8-storey square block at the Post Office corner, and a small paved open space with a kiosk up against the wall of no 120. The kiosk would contain shops and lifts to the underground car parking, 520 spaces over 3 floors with access via Mill Mead to Fairfield Avenue as before.
This came to the Planning Committee on 11 November 2009 as two parallel outline applications for mixed use development, mostly offices (about 30K sq.m.) and also 150 flats, a hotel, and a fringe of shops and cafes on the ground floor. The precise sizes of the different components were not determined, but in application 09/00567/OUT the maximum total floor space was 35,022sq.m. exactly that of the previously agreed application, whereas in 09/00566/OUT the maximum was 39,750 sq.m. Staines Town Society objected to both on the grounds of excessive size as before. The Planning Committee agreed the smaller proposal 09/00567/OUT but refused the larger one 09/00566/OUT because of its excessive contribution to traffic problems and air pollution. The developer appealed to the Planning Inspectorate, and won, so permission exists for a development of up to 39,750sq.m.
The site was cleared in 2009 and has since remained empty and boarded up. In February 2012 application 11/00561/FUL proposed to use it as a car park with 296 spaces for 3 years, but this was not implemented.
Seniats Ltd bought the site from Deutsche Bank in May 2014. In May 2015 they made an application, 15/00739/RVC, to vary some of the planning conditions attached to the existing permission 09/00566/OUT, in order to increase the number of flats to about 300, and reduce the office space. They also applied to make the vehicle access directly from the new rear road, not from Mill Mead. These changes were approved on 29 July 2015, and a full detailed application will be made in late 2015 – early 2016. Staines Town Society would rather see housing than offices on the site, while still arguing that the development is much too large, out of scale with the town and a cause of traffic congestion and pollution.
Illustrative drawings of the likely configuration of buildings can be found in Appendix D1 in the documents attached to the planning application 15/00739/RVC on Spelthorne Borough Council website. The best pictures are on document 12.
Recent Comments