DEVELOPMENT of a brownfield site on a prominent wooded hillside above the Millpool in West Looe has moved a step closer with the lodging of a planning application with Cornwall Council for an “elderly living” complex for the over-55s.

The developer’s description of the planning proposal is the “redevelopment of the existing Polvellan Manor (retaining the original house) and the creation of 26 elderly living apartments (over 55s) with integrated communal facilities, site amenity, car parking and landscape works”.

Six of the apartments would be housed in the redeveloped original building, and 19 in new-build structures split up around the site. In addition there would be a single stand-alone house, making 26 dwellings in total.

The application for the Polvellan House site – described by the developer as a ‘Regency-style Gothic’ building in ‘landscaped gardens’ – has emerged after some years of consultations, beginning with a pre-application being presented to Looe Town Council in May 2017 at a meeting attended by members of the public but with questions being asked by Looe Town Council members.

Impact

Also taken into account in the new plans was an assessment of an earlier design, the impact on the local community and importance of the site locally, a drop-in public consultation exercise with town councillors in attendance, and a review of the developer’s proposals with the Cornwall Design Review Panel (CDRP).

The site is accessed off Polperro Road and borders the Millpool car park, and the application now submitted proposes the retention, restoration and redevelopment of the original 19th-century Polvellan House building while removing latter-day extensions and additions dating from its previous uses as a hotel, a maternity hospital at the time of the Second World War and as a nursing home.

The scheme also aims to provide additional new buildings now designed to be less dominant than in earlier proposals and split across eastern and western areas of the site to break up any appearance of massing on the hillside.

The application states that, while it is usually preferred that there should be some, in this case no provision can be made for affordable homes due to the fact that residents will be required to pay a service charge.

The developers say that account has been taken of how prominent the site is when viewed from East Looe and also the wooded nature of the area, located as it is at a point where trees above the Millpool “morph” into the Polean woodland and wider wooded area around the West Looe River.

They add: “Care has been taken to design a landscape proposal which is sympathetic to the current context (wooded landscape) while including references to the original landscaping scheme and proposed new use.”

As well as the original building “returning… to its former splendour” the scheme has been “designed to be viewed from East Looe and the Millpool area as individual elements glimpsed through the wooded landscape. The materials and landscape proposals further assist with this intention. The historic house will once again be the main focus of the Millpool and the Looe Rivers.”

The plans can be viewed on https://planning.cornwall.gov.uk/online-applications/ under ref PA21/03163