Plans for ‘cramped’ four-bed HMO rejected

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Councillors have thrown out plans for a HMO in central Newport, claiming there is not enough communal space for its residents.

Members of the city council’s planning committee were concerned the kitchen at 6 Blewitt Street was too small for four adults to share, and was the main “thoroughfare” between the only bathroom and the rest of the house.

The committee also heard 20 neighbours had objected to the conversion – with one warning it would increase an “erosion of community”.

The decision to turn down planning permission has cast doubts over the future of the HMO, which members heard has been operating since February.

Case officer Jacob Cooke said the applicant received a HMO licence last December and “assumed” the conversion could go ahead.

HMOs (houses in multiple occupation) are typically properties for single, unrelated adults who have their own private bedrooms but share other communal areas.

In this case, applicant Mervyn Vincent proposed converting a ground-floor dining room into a fourth bedroom. No other internal changes were proposed.

But Cllr Gavin Horton told committee colleagues he disagreed with the “completely unfeasible” layout, and he “would not want to live where my food is being cooked in an area next to where someone has just flushed the toilet”.

Officers pointed out the existing layout had the kitchen next to the bathroom – irrespective of the HMO plans.

Stow Hill ward councillors Kate Thomas and Miqdad Al-Nuaimi both spoke in opposition to the application.

Cllr Thomas said Blewitt Street was “indisputably” a family area and described the homes there as small “cottages” unsuited to “cramped” living for four unrelated adults.

Meanwhile, Cllr Al-Nuaimi warned the property was “losing communal space for an extra bedroom”.

Neighbour Ian Walker told the committee there was a “strong body of local opposition” to the conversion, among locals who feared a HMO would add to parking pressures and waste concerns.

He accepted these were common complaints about HMO conversions, but said that didn’t mean they “aren’t real issues”.

Houses in Blewitt Street “must be among the smallest in Newport” and were “built 150 years ago for couples and small families”, he said, adding the conversion was “not a good use of property and can only add to the erosion of community in our neighbourhood”.

Despite officers recommending the application’s approval, many of the committee members said they were unwilling to give it their backing.

Cllr John Reynolds said the committee should refuse the application from a “moral and common-sense point of view” but accepted members had to find material planning reasons to refuse permission.

Cllr Will Routley said the committee had to have “compassion” for residents.

“I want to see them housed – but with dignity,” he said.

The committee refused planning permission on the grounds the conversion “would result in demonstrable harm to the living conditions of future occupiers”.

This was “due to the small kitchen area and its immediate proximity to the sole shared ground floor bathroom, creating an unacceptable relationship between these facilities,” they said.