Inspector rejects appeal over homes at former college stable block in Wisbech

A plan to convert a former teaching block and equestrian stables into five townhouses has been knocked back by a planning inspector.

The teaching block and stables, at Meadowgate Lane on the edge of Wisbech, was until 2018 part of the College of West Anglia.

It lies on the border of Norfolk, with Cambridgeshire on the other side of the road.

The scheme to convert it into three two-bedroom and two three-bedroom homes was refused by West Norfolk Borough Council in November 2021, causing the applicant to launch an appeal with the Planning Inspectorate.

In a decision issued on Thursday, November 17, the inspector said that approving the project would be against the council’s core strategy – which outlines how the borough should develop, and tries to prevent “encroachment into the countryside”.

The inspector added that it would not be appropriate to convert the building into housing, because “the condition and design of the buildings” do not make “a positive contribution to the landscape” – and the appeal was dismissed.