A FRESH ATTEMPT has been made to get planning permission to convert the vacant Fieldhead Hotel on Portuan Road, West Looe (site pictured below) into four homes.

The latest application follows two earlier applications, one which was withdrawn in January 2021 to allow the site to be marketed and one which was refused in April this year as it had not been ‘robustly demonstrated that the property has no viable future in holiday accommodation use’ and that it would result in the loss of a tourist accommodation business to the detriment of Looe’s economy. The planning officer had said that there was no justification in support of the asking price.

The current application says it is addressing the single reason for refusal by providing additional supporting evidence from a number of estate agents to demonstrate ‘beyond doubt’ that the property has no viable future in holiday accommodation use and that the asking price was reasonable and was a guide price and not fixed.

However, if the application is approved, the homes would be conditioned as ‘principal residences’ in accordance with the Looe Neighbourhood Development Plan. The conversion would create two three-bed and two two-bed homes with the majority of conversion work carried out internally although extensions are proposed to the rear. All four dwellings would have sea views with three benefiting from large sea facing balconies. The access, parking and turning areas remain unchanged as will the historic boundary wall.