755-757 London Road, Thornton Heath , CR7 6AW

755-757 London Road, Thornton Heath , CR7 6AW — London Borough of Croydon — Appeal Decision Site visit made on 20 October 2025 by J D Westbrook BSc (Hons) MSc MRTPI an Inspector appointed by the Secretary of State Decision date:05 November 2025 Appeal Ref: APP/L5240/W/25/3367791 755-757 London Road, Thornton Heath, CR7 6AW • The appeal is made under section 78 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (as amended) against a refusal to grant planning permission. • The appeal is made by Mr Dharmic Amin against the decision of the Council of the London Borough of Croydon. • The application Ref is 24/03731/FUL • The development proposed is the construction of an additional storey to create one new flat, with associated site alterations. Decision 1. The appeal is dismissed. Main Issue 2. The main issue is the effect of the proposed additional flat on highway safety in the area around London Road. Reasons 3. The appeal property is a 4-storey building with a café on the ground floor and three floors of residential apartments above. To the side of the café is the main door giving pedestrian access to the apartments, and beside that are gates opening into the service/car parking area for the property, which includes cycle parking provision and a space for one car to be parked.

755-757 London Road, Thornton Heath , CR7 6AW — London Borough of Croydon — Appeal Decision The proposed development would involve the construction of an additional floor at the top of the building to accommodate a new 3-bedroomed apartment. 4. Policy T6 of the London Plan indicates that car parking should be restricted in line with levels of existing and future public transport accessibility and connectivity. In addition, Policy T6.1 indicates that new residential development should not exceed the maximum parking standards set out in Table 10.3 of the Plan. 5. Policy DM 29 of the Croydon Local Plan 2018 (LP) indicates that to reduce the impact of traffic congestion, development must not have a detrimental impact on highway safety for pedestrians, cyclists, public transport users and private vehicles. Policy DM 30 of the LP indicates that new development must reduce the impact of car parking in any development located in areas of good public transport accessibility or areas of existing on-street parking stress, and ensure that the movement of pedestrians, cycles, public transport and emergency services is not impeded by the provision of car parking. https://www.gov.uk/planning-inspectorate

755-757 London Road, Thornton Heath , CR7 6AW — London Borough of Croydon — Appeal Decision Appeal Decision APP/L5240/W/25/3367791 6. The appeal property is situated on the western side of a roundabout to the north of the junction of London Road and Thornton Road. These are very busy roads and part of the Red Route in the area, on which parking is severely restricted. The appellant has submitted a parking survey relating to roads in the vicinity which show the area as being under heavy pressure as regards parking on those nearby roads off the Red Route. The site lies within an area having only a moderate Public Transport Accessibility Level (PTAL) rating of 3. In such areas, it is likely that people will have to rely more on private cars for daily requirements than in areas with a higher PTAL score, where there is better access to public transport. 7. An earlier planning application for construction of an additional floor on the building, which would have contained two small apartments, was refused by the Council in 2024 on grounds, amongst other things, of inappropriate mix of dwelling sizes and harm to highway safety (Ref: 23/04508/FUL). A subsequent appeal was dismissed by the planning inspector in July 2025 (Ref: APP/L5240/W/24/3353386).

755-757 London Road, Thornton Heath , CR7 6AW — London Borough of Croydon — Appeal Decision The current proposal has changed the mix of apartment sizes such that there would now be only one large three-bedroomed apartment on the new upper floor. There would, however, be no change to the existing parking provision of one on-site space serving all of the apartments. 8. The appellant contends that the parking standards set out in Table 10.3 of the London Plan would require a maximum of 1 parking space for a three-bedroom apartment as opposed to 1.5 spaces for two smaller apartments, and that this indicates a potentially lower additional pressure on on-street parking in the area. However, this does not alter the fact that on-street parking in the surrounding area is already under a high degree of stress, as identified in the parking survey submitted by the appellant, which shows unrestricted parking stress of 91% and 97% for the two dates surveyed. 9. At the time of my site visit, which was a weekday around mid-morning, I noted while walking around that the area in the vicinity of the appeal site had very high levels of on-street parking, with no apparent vacant spaces on any of the nearby roads off London Road and Thornton Road.

755-757 London Road, Thornton Heath , CR7 6AW — London Borough of Croydon — Appeal Decision The inspector in the earlier case stated that he had “had regard to the census data and levels of vehicular ownership put forward. Nonetheless, given the PTAL rating, and the high levels of on-street parking…. observed and …. recorded in the parking survey, I am not convinced that the size of the proposed flats, their town centre location, or the low levels of vehicle ownership in the area would result in less reliance on the private car”. Despite the fact that the current proposal is for one large flat rather than two smaller ones, I find no reason to differ from that general conclusion. 10. In the light of the very high parking demand already evident in the area, it is likely that an increased demand for parking, even from occupiers of only one additional dwelling, would increase the heavy parking pressure within the area, leading to additional congestion and vehicular conflict as drivers circulate this busy area in search of parking space. This would be harmful to highway safety in the area around London Road. Accordingly, it would conflict with Policies DM29 and DM30 in the LP and Policy T6 of the London Plan, and I therefore dismiss this appeal.

755-757 London Road, Thornton Heath , CR7 6AW — London Borough of Croydon — J D Westbrook INSPECTOR https://www.gov.uk/planning-inspectorate 2