Efforts to turn vacant space above a shop on Guernsey’s High Street into flats have been thwarted after the Development & Planning Authority said no to plans.
The DPA said the designs submitted “do not respect the character of the local built environment”.
Stone House Properties applied to convert the empty space above a recently vacated shop, into residential flats. Specifically, it asked for an “extension of (the) first, second and third floors to create four flats with a communal roof terrace”.
Number 32 (pictured) forms part of a row of multi-storey, historic buildings located on the west side of the High Street.
It is currently empty but was described in the planning application as a “four-storey building with retail accommodation on the ground floor and available space on the upper floors.”
The building has previously been amended at the rear with a single storey extension. It is separated from the next building along by an alley, described as a “cobbled venelle”. The DPA report suggests that it is unclear who owns the venelle.
The DPA said it rejected the plans because “any change of use application would have an adverse effect on the special interest of the building, by installation of an internal lining as that would result in removal or concealment of many of these features amounting, cumulatively, to a large adverse effect on the overall special interest of the protected building, and the setting of adjoining protected buildings”.
The DPA report also indicated that the proposals did not demonstrate consideration for the health and well-being of any future occupiers, with a lack of adequate privacy for them and neighbouring properties.
Other reasons for rejection included that the proposal “would result in partial demolition of the protected building, loss of the original plan form, loss of features within the building and construction of an extension which does not respect the scale or form of the existing
building”.