‘Excessive’ plans to add an extra storey to a 315-home central Reading development are set to be refused by the council.

The 315-home site on Napier Road is currently being built, with developer Lochailort hoping to add an extra storey with 23 flats to the site.

Reading Borough Council (RBC) officers have recommended that the Planning committee reject the request due to its ‘excessive height and bulk and inappropriate massing and proportions’.

Planning officer Steve Vigar said the ‘over-dominant’ proposal would conflict with the council’s tall buildings approach for central Reading, overly extending beyond recognised benchmark heights and causing visual harm to the local area.

He added that the application had failed to demonstrate it would allow for sufficient daylight, sunlight and wind/microclimate conditions in the surrounding area.

RBC’s Planning Applications committee will decide whether to approve the proposal on Wednesday, April 24.

The application has received 21 objections, with most criticising the scale of the development.

Residents at Kingfisher Place said the additional storey will ‘completely block the short amount of sunlight’ they experience.

The developer was granted permission application for 315 homes on the Thames Quarter site on Napier Road last year.

Lochailort submitted plans in January to increase the number of flats to 338, which would see 23 homes to be added to the ‘benchmark’ tower, taking it to 13 storeys.

The 23-storey ‘landmark’ tower would remain the same.

The application proposes the same number of parking spaces as the 49 already permitted.

Thames Quarter will be Reading’s first ‘build-to-rent’ development, with no homes up for sale.

Reading Borough Council’s (RBC) planning committee approved Lochailort’s Thames Quarter project at the former Cooper BMW garage in September 2017, with zero affordable housing.

Lochailort was granted permission on the condition that the developer provide a separate 25 to 56-

home site with 100 per cent affordable housing.

Land off North Street has been identified and work is progressing on a plan for the land.

RBC approved two competing plans for 47 homes at the former Reading Family Centre, on North Street, in December, one of which would provide 100 per cent affordable housing.

The other proposal would provide 30 per cent affordable housing, or 14 homes, and Lochailort would have to invest in a 100 per cent affordable housing site elsewhere.