NEW plans to redevelop Alton’s former police station and magistrates court have an “extremely poor design and layout”, according to the Alton Society.

Residents had the chance to view early-stage proposals for 43 retirement living apartments on Wednesday (September 25) at the Alton Assembly Rooms.

While the society welcomed the redevelopment of the building on Normandy Street, which has been disused since the police station closed in 2017, members were not happy with aspects of the scheme.

The society’s Rod Eckles said: “Yet more retirement homes for Alton? At last week’s exhibition much emphasis was placed on the growing need for retirement homes across East Hampshire, but without any real evidence of local need, especially given the number of retirement schemes recently completed in Alton, or in the pipeline.”

The biggest concern however was “the extremely poor design and layout”, which “falls well short of our expectations for such a sensitive, ‘gateway’ site”.

Instead of providing something “appropriate”, or “even something exciting and inspiring”, the developers have gone for a “dull, unattractive” design.

“The best one can say about this scheme is that it’s bland and uncontroversial,” he added.

But developers McCarthy & Stone said the plans “provide a fantastic opportunity to deliver much-needed specialist retirement living accommodation”.

Shane Paull, the firm’s regional managing director, thinks it is a “high-quality, traditional design to complement the character of the area and respect neighbouring properties”.

However, he added that they “want to hear from the local community and our future customers before we finalise our planning application”.