Plans for a new community hub that will service future residents at Ayr’s riverside flats development have been approved.
Ayrshire Live can reveal that the new hub will be ‘repositioned’ next to the last remaining tower block at Riverside Place - but slightly reduced in length - following recent ‘difficulties’ with the overall project.
Acting in the planning proposal were LMA Architects who say the hub, intended to replace a portable cabin used by residents, will be a “bespoke unit,” for use of residents only, with:
● communal meeting space;
● a smaller private meeting space, plus;
● additional support offices for caretakers and service staff for the residents and the accommodation.
In their planning and design statement LMA Architects said: “The unit is designed in the context of future residential development for the site, currently in development, to provide facilities similar to what is currently contained within the portable cabins, as well as further required supporting infrastructure for the overall residential development.
“A communal gathering space and residents hub is proposed for the residents of Riverside Place, in the form of a stand-alone single storey pavilion building.
“The proposed building would be located adjacent to the future block, part of a long term replacement of the existing towers with new flats for which the council has development rights for under residential-use protocol.
“The location allows the hub to be placed closer to the river walkway, a significant distance from the vacant remaining tower to allow future demolition offsets, while feeling like a part of the overall development.
“The pavilion orientation follows the logic of the broader design intent, sitting angled to the river and set back from it, on a relatively flat area on site.
“This also allows for its own external open space.
“The footprint has been kept minimal, to appear as an ancillary building and structure.”
Plans for the hub were approved by South Ayrshire Council back in 2021.
However, the plans, at the time, were based on all three tower blocks coming down to make way for a new batch of social housing.
Two of the famous tower blocks were bulldozed before Christmas as part of the work to build new social housing.
But officials slammed on the brakes at the third and final skyscraper - due to phone masts they cannot remove from the top of the tower.
Ayrshire Live told last year how talks took place, aimed at ripping the masts from the top of the block, which belong to telecoms giant EE.
The firm was set to receive an inflated pay-off to quit their long term lease on the site.
But those negotiations stalled- with EE standing firm on the historic contract which grants them access to the plot until 2025.
The impasse prompted a fierce political debate with local councillors playing the ‘blame game’ over why the masts issue wasn’t identified at an earlier date.
In February, we told how the possibility of Ukrainian war refugees being housed in the ghost tower left behind was mooted- with bosses at South Ayrshire Council going cap in hand to the Scottish Government seeking money to salvage the doomed block.
In terms of the proposed new homes, a scaled down version of the project will see 75 homes built in the shadow of the remaining tower - instead of the 96 originally planned.
The proposals are listed as 'permitted' on South Ayrshire Council’s online planning portal.
LMA Architects said: “Planning approval for the unit has already been obtained with a subsequent NMA (Non Material Amendment) confirmed for a slight reduction of its length.
“The current proposals are as per the approved scheme in overall design, with the only notable change being its repositioning in context, due to one of the towers under demolition being temporarily retained until its future can be resolved, and the site and future development reconfigured to suit.”
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