Toll house planning bid is withdrawn
Rethink on proposal
A restoration bid for a dilapidated former toll house near Doune has been withdrawn.
Jamie Muir had submitted a listed building application to Stirling Council planners to restore the house at Lochill Toll, demolish existing extensions and create a new rear extension.
Historic Environment Scotland acknowledged the proposed blueprint was sympathetic to the listed building but said the height and bulk of the proposed extension may have an adverse impact.
In the their consultation response, HES said: “Small buildings like lodges and toll houses are well known for being more difficult to extend than many listed buildings due to their small size and (often) their design which may have two or more elevations of interest.
“In the case of Lochill Toll, it is very prominently sited in an open location at a road junction. The building was designed to be a small and picturesque composition.
“The rearward part of the building appears to have been altered and extended but in a manner that adds to the existing building whilst being clearly subservient in scale.”
They said their lack of formal objection to the application should not be taken as an indication of their support, and that the council should seek “a more subservient solution which retains more of the existing fabric and ensures the original building remains predominant.”
In their original submission, architects for the applicants John H White said: “The existing Toll House at Lochill Toll has over the years suffered from a lack of any reasonable and necessary maintenance and has now reached a stage of dilapidation which will necessitate significant remedial and restoration works.
“Our client’s proposal for this building is to demolish the totally in appropriate lean to extensions to the rear of the listed building structure, which have been constructed in a totally substandard manner, and carefully retain the existing listed toll house which is still in a basically sound construction although neglected condition.
“It is then proposed to comprehensively restore this existing building to provide, in the limited space available, two bedrooms and a bathroom with an extension formed to the rear of the Toll House to provide the entrance hall, kitchen, dining and sitting space at ground floor level and a small third bedroom and shower room in a mezzanine floor above the dining area.”