Coventry University, The Hub, 4 Jordan Well, COVENTRY, CV1 5QT

Coventry University, The Hub, 4 Jordan Well, COVENTRY, CV1 5QT — Coventry City Council — Appeal Decision Site visit made on 12 June 2023 by Paul Griffiths BSc(Hons) BArch IHBC an Inspector appointed by the Secretary of State Decision date: 06 July 2023 Appeal Ref: APP/U4610/W/22/3308322 The Hub, Coventry University, 4 Jordan Well Coventry CV1 5FB • The appeal is made under section 78 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 against a refusal to grant planning permission. • The appeal is made by Cornerstone Ltd against the decision of Coventry City Council. • The application Ref. FUL/2022/0091, dated 7 January 2022, was refused by notice dated 17 June 2022. • The development proposed is the installation of a telecommunications base station consisting of 6 no. antenna, 2 no. dishes, and 3 no. cabinets together with ancillary development thereto. Decision 1. The appeal is dismissed. Main Issue 2. This is the effect of the proposal on the character and appearance of the existing building, and the wider area. Reasons 3. As the Council sets out, ‘The Hub’ is a distinctive modern building, prominently located on the corner of Cox Street and Jordan Well. The building is essentially a series of boxes, with a very disciplined, horizontally emphasised, cladding and glazing pattern.

Coventry University, The Hub, 4 Jordan Well, COVENTRY, CV1 5QT — Coventry City Council — Appeal Decision The building has rooftop features, including an atrium roof-light, solar panels, and various items of air handling plant, but very little of this is visible from street level1. This allows the line of the parapet to provide a strong visual conclusion to the building and accentuate the box-like, horizontally emphasised impression. 4. The antenna and dishes would be mounted on frames and protrude well above the line of the existing parapet. However coloured, they would be conspicuous features that would break the strong line of the parapet, run counter to the horizontal emphasis of the building, and appear as an obvious afterthought. As such, they would be highly incongruous and significantly harmful to the character and appearance of the existing building, and the wider area. 5. As a result, the proposal is very clearly contrary to Policy C2 of the Coventry Local Plan, and in particular section d) ii, which requires apparatus and associated structures sites on a building to be sited and designed in order to minimise impact on the external appearance on that building. 1 I was only able to make out the top of what appeared to be a flue from a position on Cox Street https://www.gov.uk/planning-inspectorate

Coventry University, The Hub, 4 Jordan Well, COVENTRY, CV1 5QT — Coventry City Council — Appeal Decision Appeal Decision APP/U4610/W/22/3308322 6. There is a failure to accord too with Policy DE1 which requires development in general to respond in a positive way to its context. 7. I appreciate that there is a need to provide network coverage and acknowledge the strong support for high quality communications set out in the National Planning Policy Framework. However, nowhere in that document do I find any suggestion that this support should override concerns such as those outlined above. Indeed, paragraph 115 sets out that new equipment should be sympathetically designed and camouflaged where appropriate. 8. On the basis of the evidence presented I am satisfied that there is no alternative site to that proposed. However, it is, in my view, wrong to present the choice as one between the proposal at issue or a continued gap in coverage. There seems to me to be no good reason why the appellant could not explore the possibility of a much better designed base station on the roof of ‘The Hub’. 9. It appears that a ‘stub tower’ has been suggested as a possibility by the Council. This seems to have been ruled out because it could not be placed centrally owing to the presence of the existing atrium roof-light.

Coventry University, The Hub, 4 Jordan Well, COVENTRY, CV1 5QT — Coventry City Council — Appeal Decision However, any such ‘stub tower’ need not be centrally placed to be visually acceptable, and if properly considered, and sited, a well-designed upward projection (or indeed projections) of this type might well work as an interesting counterpoint to the strong horizontal lines of the existing building. There is scope for an integrated solution, therefore. 10. It might perhaps be useful to look at the manner in which the flèche atop Basil Spence’s Coventry Cathedral works, as an architectural device, as something of a pointer. 11. For the reasons given above I conclude that the appeal should be dismissed.

Coventry University, The Hub, 4 Jordan Well, COVENTRY, CV1 5QT — Coventry City Council — Paul Griffiths INSPECTOR https://www.gov.uk/planning-inspectorate 2