PROPOSALS are being submitted to West Devon Borough Council for ten houses in the grounds of the former Mount Kelly Prep School in Tavistock.

Application 4004/21/FUL from the Mount Kelly College governors seeks full planning permission and listed building consent to refurbish Grade II listed Hazeldon House which has lain empty since the Mount Kelly merger with another prep school in 2014.

It also seeks permission to demolish former classrooms and a tennis court and build ten homes for sale on the open market in their place. The new homes will be on the eastern side of the site.

Consultants Cotswold Heritage, in a statement issued to the planners, said the proposals ‘would result in an enhancement to the listed building, leading to clear heritage benefits that can be weighed in the planning balance for the overall scheme’.

The house is Grade II listed and was designed by architect George Wightwick in 1833 or 1834 in the Tudor revival style fashionable at the time.

It has many original features, and the proposal is to restore those.

The original driveway to the house would also be reinstated as part of the plans.

It was apparently altered when the building became a school.

The proposal, which includes the demolotion of two pre-fab classrooms and a substantial pavilion-style building which was part of the former school to make way for the housing.

This latest application is considerably scaled down from the proposal from the Mount Kelly College governors back in 2018 to build 81 homes on the site, which was turned down by West Devon Borough Council in August of that year.

There was a great deal of opposition to the proposal, with concerns raised about over development of the greenfield site and a loss of school playing fields.

Other applications submitted to West Devon Borough Council this week include:

Householder application for demolition of sunroom, porch and garage, to be replaced by decking, a sunroom, porch and two-storey rear extension, Ormonde, Highbank Close, Tavistock — http://apps.westdevon.gov.uk/PlanningSearchMVC/Home/Details/221229

Placement of cabin to provide temporary workers’accommodation for 24 months during construction period of barn conversion at Lower Walreddon — http://apps.westdevon.gov.uk/PlanningSearchMVC/Home/Details/221243.

Provision of permanent rural worker’s accommodation, Higher Higher View Farm, Broadbury, Okehampton — http://apps.westdevon.gov.uk/PlanningSearchMVC/Home/Details/221051