March 4 2020

Cunninghame Housing Association has taken possession of 27 new homes on the site of a former agricultural supplies depot within the Annan town centre conservation area, Dumfries & Galloway.

Delivered by Manning Elliott Partnership the development includes conversion of a late Victorian shop and associated storage to form 5 homes, alongside a further 22 new build properties including terraced housing and flats in place of cleared warehousing.

Occupying a historic burgage plot the linear scheme is constrained by retained boundary walls with houses positioned to maximise views and openings to the front.

In a statement, the architects wrote: “Following a review of the feasibility options, it was agreed to progress the layout on the basis of creating a streetscape with houses facing onto front gardens with in curtilage parking spaces perpendicular to a shared access road.”
 
Conservation properties benefit from new openings formed using reclaimed stone salvaged from down takings.

4 Comments

#1 Posted by Inahuf on 4 Mar 2020 at 19:18 PM

Ooft! Homes sandwiched between a boundary wall and a load of parking spaces. Barely a place to sit out never mind play...

#2 Posted by Scott Stevens on 5 Mar 2020 at 15:49 PM

Positive to see something done on that site, which has been an eyesore for years but the use of brick, density of development and road/parking provision is brutal (not in a Le Corbusier way!).

The site needed developed and Annan needs some investment so we should be encouraging this kind of work, but it would have been nice to see a better focus on pedestrians, play and away from providing spaces for cars out front. This is supposed to be the 21st century!!! Has any provision for EV been included?

Cars and the ubiquitous grey D&G landfill only wheelie bins appear to be a key component of the design brief...

#3 Posted by Gordy on 6 Mar 2020 at 10:43 AM

Density is fine.....indeed if the houses had been 3 stories high the cars could have been popped underneath and there could have been gardens with trees....so nearly there with a real street.

#4 Posted by Egbert on 6 Mar 2020 at 12:06 PM

Welcome as this may be in principle, the on-frontage driveways and sea of brindle block paving utterly kill any chance of this feeling like a proper urban street, as they do everywhere. There seems to have been little more than lip-service paid to the burgage plot concept, and next to no engagement with how this historic town form could be reinterpreted to provide a new model of urban housing. A missed opportunity :(

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