Compass House at former Ordnance Survey site in Southampton to be turned into flats
A LANDMARK building in Southampton is to be turned into more than 260 flats.
Four-storey Compass House in Romsey Road was the home of Britain’s legendary mapmakers Ordnance Survey for more than 30 years before the agency moved from Maybush to its new purpose-built Adanac Park site at the turn of the decade.
Now the building is to be given a new lease of life as flats.
Plans also include new restaurants, shops, offices and a surgery.
At a meeting held on Tuesday, councillors at Southampton City Council backed the plans for an additional floor which will provide 19 new flats – 11 one-bedroom, five three-bedroom and three two-bedroom.
The new 19 flats will be in addition to the 245 approved last year.
Speaking at the meeting on behalf of the applicant BMR Compass, Chris Brady told city councillors that the company is trying its best to make the site a more attractive environment.
Councillors welcomed the scheme for the 19 flats but asked for the number of car parking spaces to be increased from 19 to 27 to allow extra spaces for visitors.
The site will also see 16 studio flats, 212 one-bedroom and 17 two-bedroom apartments plus 225 parking spaces.
Plans for those flats and parking spaces were never discussed by councillors as they did not require planning permission.
But Councillor John Savage, who chaired the meeting of the Planning and Rights of Way Panel on Tuesday, said he wished councillors could have had a say on the overall scheme and not just the latest addition.
He said: “The government has determined that any office block being turned into accommodation can have permitted development. We want to make the best decisions for the city but tonight we were only able to make important decisions for 19 homes.”
The proposal for Compass House comes after new homes and a Tesco Express were built at the former Ordnance Survey site over the past years.
“It was a landmark building and it has been retained in a sense because it will keep the same name,” Councillor Savage added.
Planning bosses said employment opportunities had not been lost as a consequence of the proposal as plans for new shops, offices and restaurants at the site are currently being considered.
Ordnance Survey has been based in the Southampton area since 1841 when it moved from the Tower of London. Until the 1960s, staff worked at an office in the city’s London Road before the switch to Romsey Road.