"Eyesore" shopping centre to be replaced by retirement community
It was decided after a six day appeal.
Last updated 31st May 2025
An “ugly monstrosity” in the heart of a growing Somerset village will soon be demolished and replaced with new homes following a successful appeal.
The Crispin Shopping Centre has been a feature of Street since 1979, but has experienced several years of decline since the closure of the village’s Tesco Metro store.
Churchill Retirement Living put forward plans in January 2024 to demolish the shopping centre and build a retirement complex in its place, with 45 extra care apartments and 11 ‘retirement cottages’.
Somerset Council’s planning committee east (which handles major applications in the former Mendip area) voted against the proposals in July 2024, prompting the Hampshire-based developer to lodge an appeal.
Following a public inquiry in late-April and early-May, the Planning Inspectorate has now overturned the council’s decision, meaning demolition work could be carried out before the end of the year.
The site is one of nine identified for delivering new housing within the council’s revised Mendip Local Plan Part II, which went out to public consultation in 2024.
Under Churchill’s proposals, the existing buildings would be replaced with a three-storey, L-shaped block of apartments, with two blocks of cottages on the northern and eastern sides.
Access will be from Leigh Road (including a pedestrian entrance near the library), while the current pedestrian access from High Street will be used primarily as a service entrance.
A communal car park with 21 spaces will be provided in the centre of the site, with landscaping being put in place to separate the homes from the council-run Southside car park on Vestry Road.
Churchill Retirement Living currently operates the Riverain Lodge care facility in Taunton town centre, and secured planning permission in early-April 2024 to deliver a similar development on the former police station site in Wells.
Planning inspector Hayley Butcher visited the site on April 23 (on the first day of the public inquiry), with her final ruling being published in full on the Planning Inspectorate’s website.
Ms Butcher said the Central Somerset mural within the site (which is grade two listed) had “intrinsic artistic significance” and “illustrates a
particular point in social history”, drawing on the Quaker background of the Clark family.
She said that removing the shopping centre would lead to the mural being “completely severed from its original setting” and “diminished” in terms of its visibility to the wider public.
However, she concluded that Churchill’s offer to provide on-site interpretation boards would minimise the harm to the Street conservation area, and that this assurance could be secured through planning conditions.
She said: “There is a critical need for housing of this type for older people, which also provides social benefits and can release under-occupied housing stock.
“Furthermore, the development would make a financial contribution towards the provision of affordable housing.
“Clear economic benefits would flow from the proposal, and it is an allocated, brownfield site for housing, in the centre of a large village.
” I find that the public benefits in this case would outweigh the less than substantial harm to the significance of designated heritage assets.”
Turning her attention to parking provision, Ms Butcher said the site was sufficiently close to a range of local amenities that a shortfall of car parking spaces was acceptable.
She said: “While it is correct that there are no large supermarkets near to the appeal site, online food deliveries are now widely used, and the adjacent High Street, in any event, would provide for everyday needs in the form of
bakers, local convenience stores, and pharmacies, to name but a few.
“A doctors’ surgery is one road away from the main entrance to the development and bus stops and taxi ranks are on Leigh Road, immediately adjacent to the main entrance to the site.
“There are various parking opportunities in Street; there is a large car park immediately adjacent to the site from which there would be direct pedestrian access to and from the development.
“There is no evidence before me that the proposed use is unlikely to generate significantly higher use than the existing situation.”
Ms Butcher added that concerns about over-development could be assuaged through planning conditions, opining that the development would result in “a more recessive and sympathetic building” than the shopping centre.
She elaborated: “The development would provide various areas of open space, be that private garden space to the cottages, patio spaces on ground floor flats opening onto open space, and a formal seating area off the Owner’s Lounge, all in a variety of orientations.
“The nature of retirement living naturally gives rise to higher densities.”
Ms Butcher stated that, as part of the planning approval, Churchill should make a contribution of nearly £76,000 toward affordable housing, which can be put towards delivering low-cost homes elsewhere in the village.
The developer will also provide just over £25,000 towards a new multi-use games area (MUGA) and more than £19,000 towards expanding local GP surgeries’ – with the NHS Somerset integrated care board choosing how this latter sum will be distributed.
Both Glastonbury Surgery, on Feversham Lane in Glastonbury, and the Vine Surgery on Hindhayes Lane in Street have been awarded a share of £1m from the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) to expand their physical premises over the next 12 months, enabling more patients to be treated.
Demolition work on the Crispin Centre site is expected to begin later in the year, allowing construction to move forward in 2026.