PROPOSALS have been drawn up to turn the Grasmere Hotel in Keynsham into nine homes.
Haywards Group Ltd has submitted a planning application to Bath & North East Somerset Council.
The scheme would involve demolishing the side and rear extensions of Haywards at the Grasmere and changing the use of the hotel building at 22-24 Bath Road in Keynsham.
The hotel currently provides bed-and-breakfast accommodation in 14 en-suite bedrooms and has a restaurant, bar and function room.
The building, on the junction with Chandag Road, comprises two Victorian semi-detached properties that have been extended to the rear.
The applicant is seeking outline planning permission to convert the main building into eight flats – five with one bedroom and three with two bedrooms. The scheme also includes a separate two-bedroom mews-style house to the rear.
The existing parking area in front of the hotel would be used to provide nine parking spaces – one for each flat plus one visitor space. The house at the rear would also have one parking space.
There would be secured, covered cycle storage for two cycles per dwelling.
The agent for the applicant said the scheme would remove “unsympathetic additions” to the hotel and restore it to a form more compatible with its surroundings.
They said the proposal would not cause significant harm to the amenities of neighbours through loss of light, overshadowing, loss of privacy, noise, smell, traffic or other disturbance.
The proposals include a new driveway from Chandag Road to serve the house.
The agent said the scheme represents “an efficient use of the existing building that improves the local area in terms of design and character and that the new dwelling provides a value additional to meeting local housing need in a compatible way.”
Keynsham Town Council, following a meeting of its planning committee, commented that the loss of the hotel would be detrimental to the ever-expanding town, especially to
the east, which has borne the brunt of substantial development.
The town council added: “Not only the hotel provision but the community asset of a local restaurant will be lost.”
A spokesperson for the hotel told the Voice: “At present, the hotel continues to operate as normal, and there are no changes to the business.”
B&NES Council is expected to reach a decision on the plans in June.
Plan to turn Keynsham hotel into flats
