Seven-storey offices in Slough Trading Estate given the green light

Two significant applications in Slough were given the go-ahead by the council’s planning panel on Wednesday night.

The first was for a seven-storey building on 183-187 Liverpool Road in the heart of the Slough Trading Estate.

The proposal seeks to develop the site opposite Premier Inn into offices on the top floor, flexible workshop space for small businesses on the second to fifth floors and a café on the ground floor.

Speaking at the meeting, Jessica Evans, planning associate for Slough Trading Estate’s representatives, Barton Willmore, said that the flexibility of the workspaces ‘will add diversity’ to the estate.

The idea is that small units can be combined to form bigger ones, allowing start-ups to grow while staying at the location.

The build is intended to bring the brownfield employment site back into ‘a more productive use’ Ms Evans said.

Slough Trading Estate Ltd predicts this will bring in 292 direct constrictions jobs and 283 indirect ones.

As well as economic impacts, the build offers a biodiversity net gain from infrastructure such as green walls, green roofs and micro-forests. For these reasons, officers recommended the plans for approval.

The planning panel unanimously voted to approve the plans.

Councillors also voted overwhelmingly in favour to approve 18 flats on Wexham Road – despite some concerns over the parking provision.

Applicants Wexham Construction Ltd put forward an application to build the flats at numbers 30-32, on the corner of Wexham Road and Wellington Street, at the edge of the town centre.

The plans involve demolishing the existing two houses on the site. In their place would be a three-storey building.

There would be three flats on the ground floor, including one three-bedroom family unit with a garden.

The first and second floors are set to contain six flats each, mostly two-bedroom. The third floor will have three more residences, including one three-bedroom family flat.

It will retain the nine parking spaces on-site and an internal bike store is proposed on the ground floor, with 31 spaces.

Because the parking spaces available would amount to less than one space per household, councillors raised some concerns about added the possible parking pressure nearby.

Officers said they had ‘no expectations’ of any problems, as residents living in the new development will not be allowed to apply for parking permits for the area.

Councillors were further assured that buyers should receive warning of this in advance.