Hotel Inspector venue Coach and Horses planning application

The Coach and Horses at South Perrott was seen in the programme The Hotel Inspector working with business expert Alex Polizzi to turn the business around. Her report was initially less than flattering.

The latest attempt at changes to the hotel have been rejected by planners after hearing objections from several residents and the parish council.

READ MORE: Owners of transformed hotel featured on TV's Hotel Inspector speak out

Dorset Council had been asked to consider an application to convert part of the main building into a private home and to relocate the existing manager’s flat. Also requested was the building of a storage extension and lengthening the driveway to the rear to create access, garden and parking for Riverview Cottage on the hotel site.

The nine-bedroom hotel which has a bar and a breakfast room said that had the application been allowed it would have reduced the overall size of the hotel by about one third, going down to just 5 letting rooms.

One of the properties would have been used by the owner, the other by his son, James, his wife and child. James Harris has been running the hotel since November 2016 when he took over from his father, John, who made the application for the changes.

A letter from an agent acting for the family said “The hotel has been struggling financially for many years even though my client and his son have tried multiple strategies to make a success of the hotel. My client needs to reduce running costs in order to make the business viable and keep the doors open.”

The agent said that work had started, but was stopped after a visit from a council inspector, the family not realising they needed consent to make the alterations.

Several village residents had written to the council to object to the changes with three lodging letters of support.

South Perrott parish council had unanimously voted against the application claiming the proposals contained errors and that there was no justification for the changes.

In its submission the parish council said: “All the evidence cited above clearly points towards a form of ‘development creep’. Each time, in small increments, the pub, then hotel is being reduced in size and replaced by marketable properties. The plans as presented here show a tiny bar, without a cellar and access that is both inappropriate and quite possibly dangerous. If approved, the Coach and Horses will no longer serve as a social asset for South Perrott and its surroundings.”

A planning officer which reviewed the case said that work had been carried out prior to consent:

“Extensive third party objections from local residents and former patrons of the pub/hotel also indicate that the works carried out are likely to have had a significant adverse impact on the viability of the building for business use as a pub/hotel serving the village and its wider community,” concluding that the changes could not supported by council policies because it permanently reduced the size of the business : “it has not been demonstrated to the satisfaction of the Local Planning Authority that the tourist function of the hotel/pub as it was prior to the works taking place were not and would not be viable.”

Concerns were also raised in the report about the effect on residents of noise from the hotel/bar and the possible traffic hazard which might be created by a new access.

In his application Mr John Harris said that when the Coach and Horses was acquired in 1993 it was a local pub with no letting rooms, no food, no garden and outside toilets, with the trade based around was skittles and darts.

“We obtained planning to upgrade the Coach and Horses with kitchens, function room and inside toilets so enabling the Coach and Horses to offer food, but before this work was completed trade was starting to drop, ie darts stopped, skittles down from four teams to two with no ladies teams. Over the next few years tenants ran the Coach and Horses and they all tried food, but no one succeeded…By this time all darts and skittles were finished, the drinking trade was down to a level that if one relied on it, the Coach and Horses would of had to close.”

He said virtually the only rooms being let out were to tradesmen working in the area.

“We decided that a new leaner and cheaper way to run the Coach and Horses had to be created, so that the Coach and Horses in South Perrott would remain open. The plan was my wife and I would move back to South Perrott, we needed a house, so we decided to remove rooms 8, 9 and 10 and the flat, to create Riverview Cottage. My son James and his family would move into the Coach and Horses.”

Mr Harris said that being 11 miles from the coast proved too far to attract holidaymakers and the village had little passing trade.

“If this latest plan does not work out not only for myself after all the hard work and expenses my family have injected over the years, South Perrott will be yet another village with no facilities, that the Coach and Horses Hotel once provided.”