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Council planners have approved proposals to convert a Deri church into two new homes.

The applicant, David Neade, wants to create two “family dwellings” at the currently vacant St Peter’s Church, in School Street.

Plans submitted to Caerphilly County Borough Council show one home will be in the main church building, which will be reconfigured to include three bedrooms and two lounges.

The second proposed home, which also has three bedrooms, is earmarked for the hall which joins onto the church.

Normally, applications involving the loss of community assets are only approved if the developer can provide a comparable replacement or if they can show the building was no longer needed.

In this case, council planners accepted the church closed down in early 2023 “due to being surplus to requirements as a result of a declining congregation”.

The property was on the market until mid-2025, and there was “no commercial or community interest during that time”, they found – adding there is another church in Deri near the application site.

Caerphilly County Borough Council did not receive any objections to the proposals during a recent public consultation period.

Officers granted planning permission subject to several conditions, including that an “appropriate programme of historic building recording and analysis” be carried out on the church, which is considered to be of “architectural and cultural significance”.