THURROCK Council planning committee members have approved a plan to build four blocks of apartments on the site of the Springhouse Club in Corringham.

Outline permission has been granted for the scheme which will see 95 new homes built on the site, together with a new sports and social club.

The matter came before tonight's (Thursday, 19 August) meeting of the committee which had previously deferred a decision because of concerns over a lack of parking.

The meeting this evening heard that an additional 22 parking spaces – including eight that harness technology to create car stacking – have been added to the long-running application, which came close to being rejected in June.

Concerns were still raised about whether this would be adequate, but members agreed to grant permission. Committee chairman Cllr Tom Kelly - who described the decision to approve as 'fantastic' suggested that the committee visit the site in 18 months, to see how things pan out, saying: "It will interesting to visit the site in 18 months time and see if it is working."

Cllr Kelly added that he was impressed by the developers and the changes to the application, saying: "It's a good improvement. I don't thing materially there is much for us to reject this application.

"The developers have listened to us, I am confident about this and hope it is a success. We were going to reject this but the deferral proved to be the right thing."

Members expressed concern that the sports fields are not currently being used and heard from the developers that operating the football pitches ended some years ago because of the lack of use by local teams or clubs and that it was loss-making.

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Councillors said they hoped the developers would bring the pitches back into use and asked that their view be made known to the applicants.

Cllr Gary Byrne, who opposed the application, was particularly critical and questioned the lack of use of the pitches, saying: "It's a sports club that doesn't have sport, I don't see how we can vote for that."

Cllr Terry Piccolo expressed his worry that the developers might come back with a further application for more housing at some point in the future if sports didn't come back, saying: "I am a bit concerned. There is space at the back where if the road was extended, I am concerned they could come forward with future applications for housing."

You can view the planning meeting via this link.