Keswick Town Council is to take a harder approach in its stance on guest houses being converted into “uncontrolled holiday accommodation”.
The concern is that ever increasing numbers of holiday lets are being created with no managers on site to supervise the behaviour of visitors.
Planners at the Lake District National Park Authority have so far disregarded every single past objection from the town council against guest houses being converted into holiday lets – approving more than 20 different applications.
One of the latest to come before the town council for comment concerns Rivendell Guest House, at 23 Helvellyn Street, next to Glencoe, which the town council has objected to but this time in much stronger terms.
Councillors heard that the nine-bedroom property – seven beds for guests and two beds as part of private accommodation for on-site staff – will not see any on-site management retained.
Deborah Southern, of Rivendell, has applied to the national park authority for the change of use permission, having purchased the four-star property in 2017 from an asking price of £475,000, which has been on the market for £550,000.
The LDNPA has a policy 18 in its Local Plan (2020-2035) which states that “proposals seeking to change guest houses to different forms of holiday accommodation to meet changing market demands will be supported”.
But a response to the application from the town council’s planning committee said: “This is a logical generalisation where it is a change from one situation to a similar use.
“All guest houses have on-site management to ensure standards are maintained and controlled. We have supported applications where on-site management is retained but it is our view that a change of use that involves the loss of on-site management is a totally different type of uncontrolled accommodation.
“In our view this is not in the spirit of what is intended by Policy 18 and is creating a downward spiral in the standard of holiday accommodation available.
“The stated aim of policy 18 is to ensure that tourism accommodation will deliver a high quality sustainable tourism experience which will clearly be of a lower standard with no on-site control.
“We recommend that the proviso for approving such applications that ‘it does not introduce inappropriate levels of use in this location’ should be used to refuse permission where a similar standard of management cannot be guaranteed for a change of use of this type.”
Cllr Duncan Miller said he believed the LDNPA was coming round to the town council’s way of thinking after a recent application for Brookfield guest house, on Penrith Road, was narrowly approved on the casting vote of the chairman of the development control committee following strong objections from neighbours and the co-owner of a neighbouring guest house.
The LDNPA has told the Government that Keswick has 641 holiday lets and 261 second homes, although it conceded that the figures may actually be a lot higher.
- A new holiday let could be created from a barn at Bassenthwaite, which is used as a recreation building. The plan is for Mireside Farm, Scarness Road, between Scarness and the village. It was recently given planning permission to be modernised and used as additional accommodation for the main farm, which is used as a second home or holiday let. Planning agent Martin Cuthell, of Portinscale, has told the LDNPA in a submission: “This latest application proposes to bring more flexibility, to allow it to be used as a holiday let, independently of Mireside Farm House or in conjunction with it. This proposal for holiday letting can be achieved with a sensitive design and no alterations to the courtyard or lawned grounds.”
