Bayley House Applications Refused
The Coventry Society welcomes the decision of Coventry's Planning Committee to refuse planning permission and listed building consent to convert the historic Bayley House to student flats. The Society attended the committee meeting and spoke against the application. Our comments were as follows:
"The Coventry Society endorses the officer’s recommendation that this application be refused -
"Bayley House is simply the most important heritage building that we have in the city in private hands and its sympathetic future use must be safeguarded.
"Bayley House is in a pivotal position in the city’s most historic street, alongside the country finest medieval Guildhall and opposite the world famous ruined cathedral with its ancient graveyard. The existence of Bayley House has long been taken for granted and this application has highlighted its importance and the potential that the buildings offer to the plans for a revitalised heritage quarter and improvements to the city’s image and visitor economy in the future.
"The Society is mindful of the fact that such an historic building has high maintenance and restoration costs and whilst in private hands must pay for itself through rental income. We also have some sympathy with the applicant as the lack of parking and low rental levels for offices in city centre may well make the current use marginal in viability terms. This is clearly what is driving the proposals for the change of use, but there must be a better way.
"The Society feels that, for buildings as important as this, the most appropriate future is a transfer of ownership to a trust, which would remove the drive to maximise revenue and allow access to sources of funding for restoration that are available to the applicant. This would also allow public access and produce the maximum benefit to the visitor economy.
"We understand that the building is in urgent need of major work to its fabric and the burden of repairs might well be difficult to achieve in private hands within current use constraints. This reinforces the need for the city as a whole – the Council and the Voluntary Sector - to work with the applicant to bring forward alternative proposals.
"If committee do follow Officers’ recommendations, we understand that the owner will be disappointed at the refusal, as working in isolation this may be his only economic solution. We do however believe that he has the best interests of the city at heart and if supported can work with partners to deliver a far more suitable proposal for this important building. We would ask that the applicant defers any other action regarding this change of use proposal for a period of six months to allow joint action from the city heritage community and the council to explore better alternatives."
