A pre-school that has been closed for years can be converted into homes despite concerns about road safety and parking.
A pre-school that has been closed for years can be converted into homes despite concerns about road safety and parking.
The former Meadowbrook Montessori sits on Bracknell Road, between Warfield and Winkfield Row. It was the pre-school until it merged with the main school at Malt Hill — both closed in July 2023.
Plans to convert the site have been with Bracknell Forest Council since September 2024. Quentin Trivor Ltd applied to turn the main building into a three-bed flat, two two-bed and two one-bed flats, and a separate building into a two-bed bungalow. The site will provide 12 parking spaces.
The council's planning department rejected the scheme in November 2024 and again in May last year over worries about safe vehicle access and egress. Quentin Trivor appealed to the Planning Inspectorate and won.
Inspector Bhupinder Thandi visited the site in December last year and, after considering documents from the applicants and council officers, disagreed that access would be a road safety hazard.
“The access and egress arrangements for the site would essentially replicate the arrangements that served the site when it operated as a pre-school.
“A vehicle turning left out of the site would swing onto the opposite side of the road, but this would only be during turning and for a very short distance and unlikely to conflict with oncoming traffic.
“I am also mindful that the previous use of the site would have likely attracted a greater number of and more frequent vehicular trips compared to the scheme before me.
“The modest size and nature of the residential development proposed is
likely to lead to less intensive traffic movements along the road.”
There was also a dispute about a field next to the site, which could be used as a playing field in future. Council planning officer Shelley Clark had argued that the conversion could jeopardise access to the former playing field, but Mr Thandi said the use of the land as playing fields would require planning permission and was not relevant to the decision.
He allowed the appeal on Thursday, January 8.
You can view the application — reference 25/00100/PAE — on the council’s planning portal.
James Aldridge, Local Democracy Reporter
