A bid to demolish a Gosforth synagogue and build a new apartment block in its place have been rejected by councillors.
Developers have been refused permission to tear down the United Hebrew Congregation (UHC) Synagogue in Graham Park Road. Newcastle City Council’s planning committee voted unanimously to reject the proposals last Friday, amid concerns about the “incongruous and obtrusive development”.
Waveland Ltd wanted to build 17 apartments on the site of the synagogue, with the area’s Jewish congregation due to relocate to the adjacent Lionel Jacobson House soon. Planning consultant Helen Marks, representing the applicants in front of the committee last week, warned councillors that the “under-utilised” synagogue would have “no prospect of reuse or conversion” if it is left standing empty.
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After civic centre planning officials recommended the scheme for refusal, Ms Marks claimed the council had offered “scant reasoning” to support its judgement and that the three-and-a-half storey apartment block proposed was a “high-quality design solution”. While Historic England had no objection to the plans, the local authority argued that the 1985-built synagogue was “architecturally and historically significant”.
However, council officers said that its demolition and redevelopment could be acceptable under the right circumstances – concluding that this scheme would be an “incongruous and obtrusive development to the detriment of the character of the surrounding street scene and Gosforth Conservation Area and the setting of the Grade II Listed Graham Park Road flats”.
City centre councillor Teresa Cairns said: “Redevelopment of an under-used site is really important. However, I think the domination along Graham Park Road does feel detrimental to me.
“I would like to see this site developed because an under-used site is no good, really. But I do think this is overdevelopment with the way it looks now.”
West Fenham ward’s Ian Tokell added: “There are things to like about it [the proposed development]. That view from The Grove, though… it’s enormous, it really does impose itself on the high street.”
Newcastle UHC agreed to sell the majority of its land in Graham Park Road in 2017 due to its dwindling congregation size. A previous scheme was due to see 28 retirement flats built on the site, but housebuilder McCarthy and Stone dropped those plans due to a lack of public support.
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