DHA Architects have obtained planning approval at appeal for a scheme of 26 apartments on the site of a former police station in Keynsham.

The scheme proposed 2 separate blocks: one sited on a prominant gap site within the town's Conservation Area; the other behind this and another existing building, outside the Conservation Area boundary.

Working with a multi-disciplinary design team, which included arboriculturalist, landscape architect, ecologist, acoustic consultant, drainage engineer, energy assessor, transportation consultant, viability assessor and planning consultant, the initial refusal on the grounds of overlooking, parking provision and preservation of the adjacent Conservation Area, was successfully overturned. 

The appeal decision agreed with the team's analysis that the amenity and privacy of adjacent dwellings would not be significantly effected by the proposals and there was adequate parking provision incorporated within the scheme, working to the local athurity's own sustainability criteria. The decision concluded that the design of the new apartment blocks would not harm the significant of the Conservation Area and that the mass of the blocks had been successfully broken up through the use of gables, projections and a varied yet subtle and sensitive material palette.