Plans for nine homes at former Somerset Indian restaurant

Nine homes at a village’s derelict Indian restaurant, plans for a house in a village car park, and a retrospective application for a ten-year old barn conversion are among the schemes people are trying to get planning permission for in Bath and North East Somerset and North Somerset.

Every week, the two neighbouring unitary authorities receive hundreds of planning applications and we have selected some of the most interesting proposals.

All planning applications are available for public inspection on the respective council’s website. Most plans will be decided by council planning officers, but some of the most significant or contentious will go before the councils’ planning committee.

Planning committees are made up of elected councillors but decisions should be decided based on the council’s planning policies, not local politics — although it doesn’t always turn out that way.

Plan for nine homes at village’s former Indian restaurant

A former pub in Bishop Sutton which was most recently an Indian restaurant could soon be turned into two houses — with seven more built on its car park and field.

The Butchers Arms building dates back to at least the mid-nineteenth century and was the home of Indian restaurant Sutton Spice from 2011 to 2016. But it has sat empty for the eight years since the Indian closed down.

Now Mogford Prescott Ltd want to take the pub, the two barns behind it, the car park, and neighbouring field and deliver nine homes on the site. A statement submitted with a planning application to Bath and North East Somerset Council said: “The barns to the rear are in a dilapidated state and have been used as storage for some years. The restaurant building is in a better state but has had some low quality lean to’s added over time.

“It is proposed that these are removed and the original stone building revealed. The barns that are in a worse state are proposed to be demolished with materials being reused were possible.”

There will be “minimal alterations” inside the pub to turn it into two houses, which would both have new garden spaces out back. A new wheelchair accessible house in a “modern barn aesthetic” will replace the current barns. Two more houses would be built set back on the field, with four facing the street.

The statement added: “The proposed development would be in keeping with the village settlement boundary and provide a unique infill development, celebrating the existing heritage building and providing a high quality place for new housing.”

You can view and comment on the plans here.

Plan to build house in village car park

A house could soon be built on what is currently a car park in the small North Somerset village of Cleeve.

The car park between the lane to the garden centre and the village’s iconic run of Victorian cottages used to be the car park for the village’s beauty salon. But now the owner has moved the business from No. 134 — which has now been turned back into a house — they are hoping to use the space to provide another house in the village.

A statement submitted with the planning application to North Somerset Council said: “The proposal is for a single dwelling providing the necessary parking and amenity space in line with both local and national planning policies. The property form would be two storey and have a pitched roof, most likely with gabled ends, to reflect the other local houses.”

It added that “every effort will be made to ensure the building height is appropriate to the street scene” but warned that it would need to be taller than the “extremely low” Victorian cottages next door in order for the ceiling heights to meet building regulations.

You can view and comment on the application here.

Retrospective planning permission sought for barn converted ten years ago

The owners of Chelvey Court in Nailsea are applying for retrospective planning permission for a barn conversion ten years ago.

In the eighties, planning permission was granted for an outbuilding for agricultural use. But after the house’s occupants decided not to keep farm animals in favour of a kitchen garden, the barn was converted into a shed and workshop in 2014, with a new “superstructure” built around it.

Now the pair of couples who own the manor, Keith and Katy Hallett and Jacqui and Andrew Oliver, are applying for retrospective planning permission for the move. A statement submitted with the application said: “The outbuilding is a small, single storey timber clad building with a double pitched pantile tile roof. This contains an open shed and workshop used by the owners of the main house. Its use is ancillary to the house.

“The outbuilding sits low in the landscape, within dry stone walls that are an extension of the surrounding field walls.”

The statement added: “The outbuilding is separate from the main house and all existing features, and has not affected any historic fabric, or any views of Chelvey Court.”

You can view and comment on the application here.