Totnes Town Councillors will fight for changes to a “monolithic” development in the heart of their historic town in a bid to protect its heritage and economy, when the proposals come before district planners on Wednesday.

Churchill Retirement Living have submitted revised plans to demolish the Brutus Centre off Fore Street and replace it with 42 retirement apartments and two retail units.

Part of the proposed building will be built on the adjoining public car park, resulting in the loss of half of the spaces and leaving just 25 remaining.

While not formally objecting to the plans, the town council has serious concerns about the size and bulk of the building, the loss of the public car parking spaces and the lack of Section 106 contributions.

At Monday’s full town council meeting, Mayor Cllr Ben Piper likened the proposed block of flats to a “Victorian workhouse or prison block,” while Cllr Ray Hendricksen described it as “monolithic.”

And he hailed the £210,000 offered by Churchill’s towards affordable housing in the town “an insult.”

“The look of the building is very domineering, it’s monolithic,” he stated.

“We really need to work on them to change the shape of it, change the domineering presence of it. It’s a conservation area, it abuts scheduled monuments.

“They have made great play that there will be 25 public spaces still available in the lower section of the car park by the redwood tree, but in fact it’s private land and would be very easy for them to issue parking permits for their residents and that would mean all the public spaces will have gone.

“Without public parking spaces, traders are going to be affected.

“The Section 106 monies that are being offered are an insult.

“£210,000 for affordable housing – how many dog kennels does that buy? It’s an insult.”

Cllr Piper hailed the proposed building “extraordinarily intrusive,” adding: “The longer term residents of the town will recall that that ground was called the Brutus Centre because it was meant to have been the extension of the commercial area in the heart of the town, and in the long term that is of significant interest to the health and the heart of the town.”

Cllr Sarah Collinson warned the loss of the nearby public parking spaces will have a detrimental effect on people with mobility issues.

“The location of the public parking is very sensitive from the access and equality point of view.

“Anybody with mobility difficulties, those families with young children, and other elderly people who are not resident in those flats are all going to have much more restricted access to that part of the high street.

“What we have is a proposal that would make access to that part of the town more difficult for people who are particularly disadvantaged by mobility difficulties.

“There needs to be more effort to maintain the amount of parking that we have now.”

Deputy Mayor Cllr Jacqi Hodgson attended a site meeting with the district council’s conservation officer.

She said: “People standing by the entrance to St Mary’s Church looking across that way see the roofs of the town, that Medieval look is still very apparent but the conservation officer made the point about the impact of the proposed building on that.

“This needs to be thought about, in terms of the heritage of our extraordinary town.”

Johan Van As, owner of Delphini’s Gelato in the High Street urged councillors to fight for the parking spaces.

“That parking is critical for business like mine,” he said.

“Removing a big chunk of available parking for families and less mobile people who travel in from surrounding towns and village to shop in Totnes will have a big impact on us.”

The plans are due to be discussed at the Development Management Control committee meeting which kicks off at 10am on Wednesday September 7.