Pool go-ahead at historic home despite opposition
COUNCILLORS have reluctantly allowed plans for a swimming pool and hot tub canopies to go ahead at an historic country home despite huge local opposition.
Dozens of villagers have objected to an application to carry out work at Bradley Hall, because they say they have already had to live with disruption from the family home’s two adjoining holiday cottages and they feared allowing the hot tubs to remain and turning an orangery into a swimming pool would exacerbate problems.
Following nearly an hour of questions and debate councillors accepted that addressing the concerns of the hall’s neighbours would be a matter for Environmental Health, and that there were no solid planning grounds on which to turn the application down.
Ahead of the discussion, the applicant’s architect warned the owners would be forced to appeal a decision to refuse planning permission, which was at the forefront of the mind of Councillor Sir Richard Fitzherbert when he moved it be approved.
He told members: “A lot has been said and discussed about this application, and more has been said tonight after the last meeting.
“I think in the back of our minds we’ve got the morality, perhaps, for this place, and good neighbourliness, but we’re a planning committee.
“We’ve got to operate through the planning rules that we’ve been given and we’ve been trained about.
“I’m not a neighbour of Bradley Hall, but I do appreciate the passionate submissions of the locals of Bradley.
“And I really feel we can go on about the minutiae of one hot tub, two hot tubs, the canopy, the size and mass of the swimming pool, but our officers have said in their opinion that it’s acceptable.
“So although I know we want to find a reason not to grant planning permission for this application, I’m really fearing that it’s going to be very difficult.”
Councillor Fitzherbert then added that he would like to add a “side request”, rather than a formal condition, which he conceded would not be possible in planning terms, that Bradley Hall remains a private residence, that the swimming pool is not used for commercial purposes, and that the hot tubs are properly controlled.
“It’s a side request that these things are respected”, he said: “As a need for village neighbourliness, village amenity and just the general welfare of all the residents of Bradley.
His plea to the hall’s owners reflected concerns by locals that the proposed alterations, which also included a new kitchen, painted a picture of what they referred to as a “party house”.
However the owner, Paul Staley, had spoken out at a previous meeting to insist that, despite the fact he runs a selfcatering holiday business, Bradley Hall was and would remain a family home for his seven children.
Ashbourne South councillor Robert Archer was next to speak, and he explained he had grown up in Bradley. He said: “It’s important that everyone realises that this hall is of huge importance to the village as a whole.
“It is a key heritage asset, it’s crucial to the identity of the village and therefore it’s crucial to all the villagers, not just the owner who really is a custodian of this heritage asset.
“It is really alarming to see these sort of concerns caused by this application; the suspicion and bad feeling.
“But it’s also encouraging to see the comments from the Parochial Church Council suggesting the community is willing to try and trust and accept these proposals in good faith, on the condition that it is domestic use only and that the owner does more to monitor the use of the hot tubs, which seem to be at the centre of the controversy.
“So if we do vote this through tonight, then the onus is very much on the applicant to do all that he can to be the best neighbour he can be and to accept his position as the custodian of a key heritage asset at the heart of the village as well as his role as the owner of the property to develop it, as he has the right to do.”
Following the vote, in favour of approval, a subsequent and linked application for listed building consent was then considered.
And, after a lengthy debate about some details largely relating to the design of windows, the members failed to agree on whether or not to defer their decision while more detail was gathered.
After taking a tied vote, the committee’s chairman Jason Atkin refused to offer a casting vote, and he advised the committee that the application would have to return to the next meeting for another discussion and vote.
It is a key heritage asset, it’s crucial to the identity of the village...
Ashbourne South councillor Robert Archer