Officers recommend eight flats on a former convent burial ground off Carters Close, despite 23 objections. Councillors decide at 7pm on 7 October.
Council planning officers are recommending approval for a three-storey block of eight flats on a former burial ground in Worcester Park. Sutton’s Planning Committee will decide on Wednesday 7 October.
The site is a plot of land between Carters Close and Creston Way, off Clarkes Avenue, in the North Cheam ward. It was the private burial ground of a convent, and it has taken no new burials since 1966. An exhumation licence was issued in 2018, and the report says the remains “have been removed and relocated” (officers’ report, application DM2026/00623).
The application has drawn 23 letters of objection from 23 households. That is why it goes to the committee rather than being decided by officers.
What is proposed
The building would be about 15.2 metres wide, 15 metres deep and 11 metres high, finished in brick, white cladding and tiles. It would hold:
- three three-bedroom flats
- three two-bedroom flats
- two one-person flats of 39 square metres each
- eight parking spaces, one per flat, with a single vehicle access
- a shared bin store and a secure cycle store on the ground floor
Six of the flats get a balcony or patio of about 7.4 to 8 square metres. The two smallest flats get no private outdoor space. The report points their future residents to Mayflower Park and the Dorchester Road recreation ground instead.
It was refused a year ago as three houses
The same land was the subject of a smaller scheme, for two semi-detached houses and one detached house. The council refused it on 6 August 2025 for four reasons:
- poor private garden space for the new homes
- the parking layout, which would have pushed cars onto already busy streets
- future pressure on a protected tree, known as T19, from the gardens around it
- no signed legal agreement to monitor biodiversity
The new scheme swaps three houses for one block of flats, goes from two vehicle entrances to one, and from three parking spaces to eight.
What neighbours objected to
The report summarises the objections under four headings:
- Parking: eight spaces for eight flats is not enough, on streets where parking is already scarce, and the parking survey was flawed
- Character: the scale and intensity of use does not fit the area
- Neighbours: noise, overlooking, and loss of light and outlook
- Other: pressure on drains, difficult construction access, and bin collection
Residents also raised new yellow lines planned for the estate and the ground stability of nearby blocks of flats. The report treats both as matters it cannot weigh in a planning decision.
Why officers still say yes
The council’s highways officer agreed with residents on one central point. The report says overnight parking stress in the surrounding streets “already exceeds acceptable capacity thresholds”, and that the flats “will exacerbate this issue”.
It still does not justify refusal, the officer concluded. National policy allows refusal on highway grounds only where the impact on safety is unacceptable or the effect on the road network would be “severe”. Eight flats do not reach that bar, the report says.
On trees, the council gave separate permission on 5 August 2026 to fell one protected oak on the site (TREE2026/00066). The applicant says no other trees will go. The building and its hard surfaces would still reach into the root areas of three protected oaks and two groups of trees. The tree officer accepts this, provided piled or pad foundations and a no-dig surface are used.
Officers also found no harm to neighbours from overlooking or loss of light. The nearest homes, 41 to 52 Carters Close, would be about 14 metres from the new block.
There is no affordable housing requirement at this size. The flats would pay the Community Infrastructure Levy instead, at £100 per square metre to the council and £25 to the Mayor, before indexation.
Two small inconsistencies are worth noting in the report itself. It gives the site’s public transport rating as 1b in one section and 2 in another, both of which count as poor. And it describes the two smallest flats as studios in one place and as one-bedroom, one-person flats in its floor-space table.
What it means for you
If you live on Carters Close, Creston Way, Handside Close or Clarkes Avenue, this is the decision to watch. The meeting is at 7pm on Wednesday 7 October at the Civic Offices, St Nicholas Way (agenda).
A Sutton resident can speak for up to four minutes on an application on the agenda. You have to tell Committee Services by midday on the day of the meeting, on 020 8770 4990 or committee.services@sutton.gov.uk. If several people want to object to the same scheme, they will be asked to choose one speaker. The meeting is also recorded and published on the council’s website.
Our guide to Sutton planning applications explains how to search the register and follow an application near you.
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