Pub's Asset of Community Value status behind refusal of planning permission for homes conversion

The four home scheme involved the conversion of the existing building to provide two apartments and the construction of two four bedroom houses in the beer garden and car park.  The proposal retained a smaller pub on the ground floor.

Planning officers said that the pub's ACV listing was a material planning consideration.  However, they considered that as the proposals retained a smaller pub on the ground floor it only needed to be given "limited weight".  Ultimately they recommended that the proposals complied with local and national planning policy.

The Developer argued that the current use of the building could not be retained in a viable way.  However, the planning committee unanimously resolved to refuse the application "due to the site being a valuable community asset listed as an Asset of Community Value".

Planning expert Elizabeth Wiseman of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said: "Whilst non-statutory guidance says that planning authorities don't have to consider ACV listings as material considerations, a number of recent decisions demonstrate that planning authorities will treat an ACV listing as a material consideration."

"For example Brent Council recently refused a planning permission for the redevelopment of the Kensal Rise Library, a listed ACV, on the basis that the development proposals failed to provide sufficient mitigation for the loss of the ACV.  Despite such recent examples there remains uncertainty over how much weight an ACV listing will carry through the planning process," she said.