Plans for flat in vacant shop resubmitted after refusal

Plans have returned to convert a former shop into housing after they were blocked by Watford Borough Council.

The owner of 194 Queens Road had applied for permission to turn the ground floor retail unit into two self-contained homes but the application was shot down on June 3.

Council officers said the applicant had not demonstrated that the rooms would receive enough light and that altering the building’s entrances was not allowed under permitted development rights.

The unit was formerly home to Custom Hose & Fittings, a hydraulics and pneumatics supplier who moved out the property in February 2023 and is now based in Redbourn.

But yesterday (July 3), a new application was registered which rebuffed the officers’ previous reasons for refusal.

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The applicant claimed a drawing showed the building’s exterior would not be altered and submitted a daylight report which said occupants would receive “acceptable” sunlight levels.

If approved, it would see a single-bed flat and a two-bedroom apartment built in the former shop on the ground floor of the building, with separate street-entrances.

Two-flats are already in use on the first-floor which will have a separate entrance at the rear of the building.