Bid to convert listing building in Finedon refused

An application to convert a Grade II listed building in Finedon into a one- bedroom house has been refused.

North Northamptonshire Council’s Local Area Planning Committee turned down the application for the former heritage centre in High Street at its meeting yesterday (June 10).

The committee also refused a second application for listed building consent for the conversion of the building. Both applications had been recommended for approval subject to conditions.

A report to the committee stated that Finedon Town Council objected on the grounds of the ‘inappropriate use of the listed building, the ground surrounding the property being a graveyard and the property being next to a school on a blind bend without any off-street parking.’

One letter of objection was received by the council from an occupier of a property in the vicinity of the site on the High Street.

The objection was summarised as raising the following issues: Visibility would be worsened by on-street parking by the site; Consider the study to be a second bedroom and so possibly more cars; Concern about the narrow gap between the rear extension and the listed barn wall which would attract debris and not allow room for maintenance of the wall.

A former Quaker Meeting House, the building was listed in June 1970 as ‘John Drage Chapel of Rest and attached walls’

Within the site to the east of the building is a burial ground associated with the former use of the site as a Quaker Meeting House.

Finedon Local History Society was set up in 2000 and started using the building a year later.

It stopped using the premises in 2019 and moved over to the Mission Room in Well Street where it has been based since.