Thumbs up for Montgomery development

By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter 

Councillors have given the thumbs up to plans for a terrace of three homes in the car park of a former historic Montgomery pub.

But a condition will be placed on the planning permission to stop them becoming holiday lets.

At a meeting of Powys County Council’s Planning committee on Monday, councillors debated a proposal by Michael Broxton to build three houses next to the town’s Cottage Inn.

The proposal has been called in front of the Planning Committee by Montgomery’s Powys county councillor, Jeremy Brignell-Thorp.

Cllr Brignell-Thorpe said: “I object on the grounds that it has not complied to the Future Generations Act 2015.

“Public bodies are required by law to make sure that when they make decisions, they take into account the impact these could have on people living in the future.”

Cllr Brignell-Thorp believed this application and a previous application “failed to address this need”. This is because it removed the pub as a “community facility”.

Cllr Brignell-Thorp said: “Until it was purchased by the owner it was a thriving pub.

“There are only two other venues in the town that serve drinks, both are about 500m away.”

He added that in the new version of the Local Development Plan that is being worked on by the council, there will be more housing developments in and around Montgomery but “none of these will have community facilities”.

He added: “So in this part of Montgomery there will be just housing, nowhere for residents to meet for drinks. This is precisely what the future generations act is trying to protect against and ensure our towns do not become hollowed out dormitories.”

He told councillors if they approved the plans they were “further embedding” a legal contravention.

Mr Broxton’s planning agent, Gerallt Davies of Roger Parry and Partners, said: “The comments around loss of facility has already been judged.”

He explained that the original application had been withdrawn because Montgomery Town Council had “raised some concerns” regarding design and layout.

Mr Davies said: “We resubmitted the application with a change of design to be a bit more traditional and in keeping with the town.

“We are glad to say the Town Council had no objections when they saw the layout.”

Planning Officer, Rhian Griffiths, said: “The built heritage officer is now happy with the changes. Cadw have been consulted and have confirmed they have no objections.”

She recommended councillors approve the plans.

Cllr Gareth E Jones asked: “If they wanted to use these as holiday lets would they have to apply for change of use?”

Ms Griffiths said: “There would be permitted development rights if they wanted to do that at a future date.”

Cllr Jones said: “Could be we put a condition on to say that they would have to come back for planning permission.”

Ms Griffiths agreed that this could be done.

Cllr Elwyn Vaughan then put forward the recommendation to approve the application with a condition that it would be for “residential use only”.

But before the vote took place, Cllr Karl Lewis asked if this condition could be challenged by the applicant.

“It’s possible,” said Peter Morris, the council’s planning professional lead.

The application went to a vote and was supported unanimously by all 13 councillors in the meeting.

In March 2023, Mr Broxton was given planning permission to convert the 18th century pub into a four-bedroom house.

The Cottage Inn had been used as a visitor centre for Monty’s Brewery but closed in 2020.