SUMMARY OF BENEFITS

  • Delivering much-needed housing on a site allocated for development in the Reading Borough Local Plan. This will help ensure that the Council provides the homes it needs, in the right locations.

  • Provision of a range of specialist older persons accommodation ranging from retirement homes, assisted living units and care home bed-spaces. There is a significant under provision of this type of specialist housing in the locality and need for older persons housing is only projected to increase in future years as the population ages.

  • Provision of much-needed affordable housing, restricted to eligible residents of Reading Borough, as well as market housing.

  • Securing the future of Caversham Park House and its grounds to ensure that its special historic interest is conserved for future generations.

  • Removal of many of the inappropriate modern additions and alterations made to Caversham Park House itself and unsightly infrastructure within its grounds as part of its conversion to office use by the BBC.

Beechcroft has worked hard to understand and assess the history of Caversham Park and in turn how it can best be developed in order to conserve the historic features of the site whilst delivering the greatest benefit to the local community.

There are social, economic and environmental benefits associated with the scheme which we summarise as follows:

  • Making efficient use of an under utilised site in a sustainable location.

  • Generation of approximately 65-70 FTE jobs including care workers and grounds maintenance staff.

  • Opening up the Caversham Park site from dawn to dusk to the public for the first time and providing a new local recreational resource.

  • The ability to put in place a long-term management and maintenance plan for the Caversham Park grounds to ensure that it is maintained to a high standard in the interests of its historic landscape character, wildlife and public enjoyment.

  • The provision of additional recreational facilities in the form of a new tennis court, bowls greens, croquet lawns and refurbished/extended pavilion. These facilities would be available to the public and maintained as part of the development.

  • Enhancement to the ecological habitats on the site in order to provide a net gain for biodiversity in line with Government objectives including provision of new traditional orchard planting.

Beechcroft considers the amended scheme to deliver a substantial package of benefits and we hope you agree that our refreshed scheme represents a high-quality sustainable use for the site.