PLANS to build five residential dwellings and a commercial unit on a former car park to a public house in Marhamchurch have been allowed.

The latest application to build five dwellings and a commercial unit on the former car park of the Bullers Arms Hotel, Marhamchurch, from applicant, Stephen Rudman, was presented as an appeal to the planning inspectorate at a public hearing in January, following its refusal in June 2016.

The Bullers Arms Hotel and the car park were bought in 2006. However, the business closed in 2012 and the property and car park was put on the market. The current owner of the Bullers Arms, Nikki Unger, bought the pub in 2013, but the purchase did not include the car park.

A licence was initially given, allowing customers to park there when using the community facility. However, this licence was revoked in 2014 and since then, the pub has continued to operate without the car park.

The Post previously reported in 2016, following an informal meeting in May with Cornwall Council’s east sub area planning committee, that the application was refused due to the considerable threat this proposal would pose to the village pub, the Bullers Arms.

With 12 votes to two, councillors came to the resolution that the application ‘would permanently hard the continued viability of the Bullers Arms’.

However in August, an appeal was lodged against the refusal of the plans. Walter Wonnacott, consultant for Peter Wonnacott Planning, planning agent for the application, told the Post at this time: “The planning committee failed to justify why it has departed from the clear determination of the planning inspectorate and acted against the very clear advice of its senior development officer, its development manager and its legal officer. An appeal has therefore been lodged against the refusal of this application.”

The appeal was dragged into 2017, with a public hearing having taken place at the Parkhouse Centre in Bude on Tuesday, January 10. This saw a packed room full of villagers from Marhamchurch, members of Marhamchurch Parish Council and Marhamchurch Conservation Group, as well as others, attending to show their support or opposition to the application.

Following the public hearing and a site visit on January 10, the decision was made by planning inspectorate, Jane Miles, on Friday, March 24 that the appeal would be allowed.

In her decision document, Ms Miles states: “…Because the BAH (Bullers Arms Hotel) and the car park area are now in separate ownership, these two areas no longer form a single unit of occupation. Thus even though there has previously been a functional relationship between them, logic dictates that they must now be treated as physically separate areas.

“It follows that I do not accept the argument that the BAH and the car park area currently form a single planning unit. Moreover nothing put before me, in writing or at the hearing, has explained how the appellant could reasonably or realistically be expected to provide detailed financial information about the viability of a business in which he has no involvement.”