Town centre housing development scheme would 'undermine' regeneration hopes say officers

Planning officers say the scheme ‘would undermine efforts to successfully achieve the positive transformation and regeneration’ of Corby’s town centre

By Sarah Ward

Former supermarket on Alexandra Road

A scheme to turn a disused town centre supermarket site into a development for as many as 110 homes looks unlikely to get planning approval.

Sheer Anchor Evolve, which is part owned by Midlands property millionaire Caspar MacDonald-Hall, wants to knock down the former Coop site on Alexandra Road and build a new six storey housing scheme on the prime location a stone’s throw from the Savoy Cinema.

However council officers have recommended North Northamptonshire Council’s new planning committee refuse the development in its current form because they say it does not meet local planning policy guidelines and think it would undermine the authority’s efforts to bring about a positive regeneration of the 1950s built town centre. 

Sheer Anchor Evolve has drawn up three plans for the housing scheme - all a variation on a combination of one and two bed flats and small houses. The six storey part of the scheme would front Alexandra Road and then ste…