A plan to add more flats to a converted office in Bracknell could still go ahead.
The Lavenir building is situated in Opladen Way and can spotted from the busy Bagshot Road roundabout near the Leisure Centre.
It was previously occupied by the Cadence design business before it moved to the Maxis business park in Western Road.
Street view imagery shows L’avenir being sealed off in 2017, as the building was later successfully converted into apartments in 2020.
Flats in the building are currently being marketed. An advert on the Duncan Yeardley website states: “L’avenir is a gated development of stylish 1 and 2 bedroom apartments located within easy reach of Bracknell’s vibrant town centre, The Lexicon.
“Each apartment at L’avenir is the result of carefully considered design and benefits from a high level of specification and secure allocated parking.”
Mountley Group, the owning company of the building, applied to add a two-storey roof extension to create 35 more one and two-bedroom apartments.
That would bring the building total to 104 flats.
However, the extension was rejected by Bracknell Forest Council’s planning department, with the remarkable claim by the town council that the building is “already failing” and cannot handle more flats being added.
The town council’s planning committee, recommending refusal, stated: “The block has issues that need to be corrected to bring it into a suitable living standard for the residents already living there.
“Overdevelopment by adding more flats to an already failing property can only result in poorer living conditions when we should be trying to improve our residents’ quality of life and living conditions.”
The plan received additional opposition from neighbours, who said they are suffering due to black mould, damp and leaks.
Residents also argued that construction work on the extension would cause unacceptable disturbance.
The project was therefore refused by the council’s planning department in December last year.
But the development could still go ahead, as Mountley has appealed against this decision to the government’s planning inspectorate.
In a statement of case for the appeal, the developer argued that the council’s justification for refusal – that permitted development rights do not cover extensions in certain circumstances – was faulty.
The document states the developer should not be prevented from creating ‘further sustainably located flats’.
All the documents have been submitted for the appeal, but no date has been set for a decision yet.
You can view the application by typing reference 24/00386/PARC into the council’s planning portal, and find the appeal using reference APP/R0335/W/25/3366046 on the planning inspectorate website.
A previous appeal against the council’s refusal of a plan to add 42 flats to L’avenir was dismissed because not all of the required documents for the appeal were submitted in time.
