THE father of The Only Way Is Essex star Lucy Mecklenburgh has lost his legal bid for permission to build a four-storey development dubbed Towie Towers in Crown Street, Brentwood.
Paul Mecklenburgh, the boss of MCC Developments, appealed to the Planning Inspectorate after the borough council refused his application to demolish the former bike shop on the corner of Crown Street and Hart Street and replace it with a four-storey development of 17 flats and ground-floor shops.
He then resubmitted an application for a smaller building with three floors.
That was approved in March, although he had been hoping for permission to build the larger development by overturning the council's decision to refuse four floors at appeal.
The Planning Inspectorate has now ruled that the development could be harmful to the look of Crown Street.
In her report, planning inspector Ava Wood noted: "In this context, the proposed building would amount to a highly pronounced monolithic feature by virtue of its height and mass being reinforced by the exaggerated modelling at upper roof levels, and would dominate the smaller scaled buildings in Crown Street.
"The heavy handedness of the design would add to the bulk and unsympathetic visual prominence of the building."
Council leader Louise McKinlay said: "I'm pleased to see the result of the appeal backs the council's position.
"It is accepted that the area is in need of development and the inspector makes clear that she supports the mixed use element of the proposal, which I would also back, but clearly the impact of what was applied for was simply too much for the area and would have been detrimental to our town centre."
