Keswick Ministries has won planning permission to convert part of its traditional convention centre in Skiddaw Street into new accommodation units.
Planners at the Lake District National Park Authority gave the go-ahead to create up to nine new apartments from the garages and a utility block on the ground floor of the two-storey site.
But town councillors remain concerned that the new units — when not being used — could add to the proliferation of Airbnb units across Keswick.
The surge in new holiday lets and the difficulties faced by local people struggling to find anywhere affordable to rent or buy, has been top of the council agenda recently.
Given the housing shortage, some members of Keswick Town Council expressed their disappointment at the recent planning decision.
A representative from the Ministries confirmed that the units could end up being let out as Airbnb when empty.
But they emphasised that the Skiddaw Street site was used year-round for training, church weekends, retreats, courses and visiting schools – and not just during the three-week convention.
That means any use as Airbnb would not be for “huge parts of the year”.
Treasurer Steve Adam explained that in recent years, it had faced “dramatically” rising costs for accommodation in Keswick and spent up to £250,000 to put up between 200 and 250 volunteers which it had to fund.
The new units would help mitigate against those rising costs, he said, while the Charity Commission also required the Ministries to achieve the “maximum return” from its assets to help generate funding.
Cllr Tony Lywood said accommodation at the site had always been offered to Christian organisations and felt any expansion into Airbnb would be “very disappointing”.
Cllr Duncan Miller, a member of Keswick Town Council’s planning panel, said he had been informed that any use of the accommodation would be “in association only” with training at the Skiddaw Street site.
But Cllr Adam Paxon said how the accommodation was used would be “very difficult” for anyone to keep track of.
Cllr Paxon said: “I’m just a little nervous about the ‘policeability’ of this new accommodation.
“If it appears on Airbnb can someone do something about that,” he asked.
Cllr Paxon also said the site had been earmarked for housing by the LDNPA in its new Local Plan 2020-35.
It was identified as an area of Keswick town centre where the national park would support developers coming forward with new housing proposals – although the designation did not mean the Ministries had to sell it off
The 0.7 hectare site was listed as one of seven possible housing sites in the Keswick area where new housing might go.
Cllr Paxon said the new arrangements for the site meant an opportunity for housing had been lost.
“What’s happened since then is that there has been the development of the car park to allegedly alleviate parking problems and there has been moving into those offices and now this later development of the unused property underneath them.
“Isn’t it all distinctly moving away from the idea that that site is ever going to be available for local housing?”
I thought the whole intention of the move to the pencil factory was to make everything on one site. Now we are seeing additional accommodation here and to me it just seems to be an about turn.”
The plans show that each new unit would provide a “degree of independence” with individual bathrooms, en-suite, kitchen area, bedrooms and a general sitting and dining area.
Representatives at the Ministries were approached for comment.
Planners agreed the accommodation can be created from what are garages and storage areas on the ground floor of the two-storey centre.
The plan is to provide an additional eight self-contained units.
Internal alterations will also be carried out to the existing bunk unit at the front of the building to provide an additional two units.
Keswick Town Council supported the scheme, but only if it was to service the convention. It objected if any of the new units would be used as holiday letting accommodation such as Airbnb.
