Three guesthouses in Keswick look set to be given the go-ahead to be converted into holiday lets next week – flying in the face of concerns that it could bring rowdy “stag and hen parties” to quiet residential streets.
On Wednesday, Lake District National Park planning committee members will consider a trio of change-of-use applications.
They concern the Rowan Tree at 37 Eskin Street; neighbouring Squirrel Lodge at 43 Eskin Street, and Chiltlee Guest House at nearby 51 Helvellyn Street.
National park planning officers have recommended that its 10-member panel give the applications the go-ahead.
Final decisions will be made next week, but the recommendation is at odds with the views of Keswick Town Council which opposed all three applications.
Councillors have warned about the emerging new trend to turn B&Bs and guesthouses in residential areas to become holiday lets.
The town council believes the Keswick area is already adequately served with holiday lets and has concerns how a single group occupancy could be managed.
Their concern is that if the owners live off-site and out-of-town, or the management of the property is left to an external agency, problems could go on at all hours without speedy resolution.
Objectors too have said Eskin Street is “unsuitable” for large holiday lets and that unmanaged big groups can result in “anti-social behaviour” – particularly if they start to draw hen and stag parties at weekends.
An objector added: “Guest houses are able to control noise and disturbance which holiday lets won’t be able to do. A holiday let with result in increased pressure on parking in an area that already struggles with parking.”
However, national park officers believe that “associated noise and comings and goings” from holiday lets would be “akin to the existing use,” and would not result in any new or significant impact on residential neighbours.
Alan Dunn has lived on Eskin Street, Keswick, for 23 years and described the national park’s take on the issue as “arrant nonsense.”
Mr Dunn said since he moved in during 1998, Eskin Street had increasingly felt “less and less” like a residential area with family homes being converted into tourism accommodation.
Mr Dunn said he understood that some B&B owners found it difficult selling up which made a change-of-use application attractive.
Some guest house owners, even those that lived far outside of Keswick, could also be quick to try to resolve any complaints.
But Mr Dunn added: “In general, anti-social problems arise when there are a large number of people all in one house and there is no on-site or in-town management.
“Someone has said this is the trend and people don’t want to be in B&Bs anymore and want to have access to the house at all times. I can understand that, but it tends to be about what do people come to Keswick for.
“There’s a difference between those who come up for fell-walking, admiring the scenery or using the lake, and those who come up for a long weekend to party and booze.
“You always know there’s going to be a problem when they arrive and carry in boxes and boxes and boxes of booze.
“They don’t always spend a lot in the town and although some do go out to the pub, if they do, they come back late, it’s noisy and there’s nobody on-site to say stop it.”
He said of the national park recommendation: “I could take them to half-a-dozen local residents at different points in the local vicinity and they would tell them exactly the same problems.
“When the committee comes to vote on this, if they wouldn’t like something like that next door to them without someone on-site or near-at-hand in the town, then I don’t really think they should vote for it.”
However, the difficulties of selling guesthouses in Keswick was starkly illustrated this year in an application to the national park authority.
Applicant John Berry, of the Parkfield House at The Heads, Keswick, won change-of-use permission – not into a holiday let, but into a private residence.
The six-bedroom property, complete with private owners’ accommodation, had been used as a guesthouse for 40 years but while it had been actively marketed for sale as a tourism business for in excess of three years, it failed to get a purchaser.
Despite attracting 16 viewings, there were no offers to buy it, although it would generate “substantial” interest if it could be sold as a dwelling, according to estate agents.
The national park subsequently agreed to allow the change-of-use from a guesthouse to a dwelling to help increase the possibility of a sale.
