Fresh bid submitted to turn fire-damaged listed barn into home

Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter

Fresh plans to turn a historic mid-Wales barn into a home have been lodged with local planners.

The new submission comes just weeks after a previous application for the barn at Cantref House was rejected by members of the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park Authority (NPA) Planning committee.

Rob Jenkins has applied again to reinstate a listed barn, lost in a fire with incorporation of an existing annexe building to form a new dwelling with attached barn storage.

Cantref House is Grade II listed three-storey house with a late Georgian façade which was built as the vicarage to St Mary’s Church around 1790.

The site is near Llanfrynach to the south of Brecon.

The barn is at the back of Cantref House, separated by a yard and garden and is listed due to its functional relationship to the house.

In 2020 the barn was nearly destroyed in a fire with only the walls left standing.

Full and listed building planning applications to rebuild the barn have already been approved by planners.

The stumbling block is a condition on the permission which means that the barn can only be used as an “ancillary” to Cantref House.

Mr Jenkins  wants to connect the barn to an existing building to form one dwelling.

This condition hinders financing the project  as mortgage companies require it to be an “open market dwelling.”

Bannau Brycheiniog planners said that changing the building’s classification to allow for this to happen would be against policy.

When the previous application was debated at the NPA Planning committee in March, sympathy was shown by members with some wanting to postpone taking a decision until issues around an affordable housing contribution had been sorted out

But concerns that a deferment would mean “dragging out the application on and on,” held sway on the day.

Since then, talks have taken place between the applicant and NPA planners to find a solution.

Planning agent Samuel Organ of CO2 architects explained: “That revised approach is to secure the acceptability of the dwelling through a section (s) 106 agreement which controls occupation and defers payment of the affordable housing contribution until a defined future disposal event.”

The total cost of the project is expected to be over £600,000 while the insurers have only paid out £114,000 to the family

This means that £486,000 needs to be found for the scheme which would be financed by a mortgage.

Mr Organ said: “Lenders require the property to be capable of lawful occupation.

“The proposal is no longer advanced on the basis that no affordable housing contribution should ever be payable.”

Mr Organ explained that a “draft heads of term for a s106” agreement provides that the buildings may initially be occupied only by the family and the direct descendants of Cantref House.

Mr Organ said: “That restriction reflects the family-based justification which has consistently underpinned the proposal and ensures that the dwelling remains anchored to the existing holding, rather than being capable of immediate disposal on the open market.

“If Cantref House is sold outside that family group, the affordable housing contribution becomes payable in full.”

A decision on the application is expected by June 23.