HMO plan for Nelson Road in St John's rejected by council

Developer Karamjit Singh had wanted to turn 3 Nelson Road into a five-bedroom house of multiple occupation (HMO).

But the application appeared to be the final straw for neighbours, who said the high number of HMOs in the area had led to rowdy parties and caused parking chaos.

City planners said there are already 22 existing HMOs within a 100-metre radius of 3 Nelson Road - 13.42 percent of the total number of properties in the area.

CONCERN: Linda Wilkes lives next to a HMO in St John's (Image: SWNS)

As this is above the council’s 10 percent threshold limit, planners said “an additional HMO in this location is unacceptable in principle”.

Planning officers also raised concerns that not all of the proposed bedrooms would meet minimum room size requirements.

“It can be seen that the proposed five-bedroom HMO is overdevelopment,” they added, “which results in lack of provision for outdoor amenity space once refuse and cycle storage has been provided.

“Therefore a poor standard of residential accommodation would result for the future occupants.”

Planners were also concerned that a lack of off-road parking spaces would add to the existing parking issues in the area.

The application had attracted dozens of objections from neighbours, who said parking on Nelson Road and surrounding streets is already “a nightmare”.

Linda Wilkes, who lives next door to a HMO, said: “We didn’t notice it at first but more and more houses on the street were bought by landlords and rented out.

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“It’s gradually got worse since they’ve been expanding the university.”

Jayne Lewis said St John’s is “becoming like a student ghetto”.

Charity Byrne said: “There needs to be a halt of HMOs in St John’s. The university expansion clearly has not been well thought out.”

The University of Worcester said it was a matter for city planners to decide whether houses should be converted into HMOs.

In a statement, it said: “The University of Worcester has developed a substantial stock of purpose-built student accommodation in the city.

“More than half of our students are studying to become nurses, midwives, teachers, doctors, physiotherapists, paramedics and for other vital professions.”