HMO plans for Sutton hotel under fire from local councillor

Coun David Hennigan, Ashfield Council member for Sutton Central and New Cross has asked for the plans for the Central Hotel, on Station Road, to be ‘called in’ for more scrutiny.

He said: “I have called this in for the planning committee to fully investigate the approval of a HMO in the heart of Sutton.

“The owners of the Central Hotel have been good custodians of the premises over a significant amount of time. The plans leave occupants wholly unsupervised however – right next to Sutton town centre.”

And he adds ‘the plans are unclear and offer no cycle storage and I have concerns 14 car parking spaces for 14 or 15 rooms is not enough’.

He said: “With the council securing tens of millions of regeneration cash, this sounds like an attractive proposition for a developer.

“I oppose it on the grounds of the impact on its neighbours and the increase in cars at two extremely busy junctions.”

He has written to officers at the council, specifying he believes ‘ giving permission for an HMO in this location will have an adverse effect on the residential amenity of neighbours, by reason of noise and disturbance and will lead to a loss of privacy’.

He says he believes the application will lead to ‘unacceptably high density / over-development of the site”, and that “the proposed development is over-bearing, out-of-scale and out of character in terms of its appearance compared with existing development in the vicinity’.

The plans are dated as valid from June 26, and the applicant is named as Mark Henderson-Savage, of Savage Properties, in Woodthorpe, Nottingham.

In the application form, it is stated: “I am seeking approval to convert the hotel in to a HMO. I would not be looking to do anything structural internally or externally, as the rooms are already in place it would be a change of use.”

The council says a decision is due by August 28.

Mr Henderson-Savage could not be reached for comment.