A ROW over changes to a listed building that prompted a fall out between neighbours has been resolved with the adaptations approved.

An application for approval to make changes to a former stables building in an historic town centre was first made in March 2022 and has only concluded with the decision of an independent inspector in February – just one month short of four years since the first application was submitted.

The grade II-listed building had been converted, from a solicitor’s office, to a two storey, three-bedroom home and a linked two-bed coach house behind it and bought by Rachel Lloyd and Dean Perry in November 2020.

At one point Monmouthshire County Council had even agreed to approve the changes, which included fixing an air source heat pump to the outside of the house, only for Welsh planning body PEDW to step in. It said the council shouldn’t have considered the application as it had already accepted an appeal on the basis a decision hadn’t been made in time.

As a result two appeals submitted by Ms Lloyd and Mr Perry to Planning and Environment Decisions Wales had to be considered by independent inspector Hywel Wyn Jones who allowed their appeals.

Mr Jones did however dismiss part of one appeal and found Monmouthshire County Council was right to refuse listed building consent, in June 2024, for air source heat pumps at the house on Porthycarne Street in Usk.

He backed the council’s position their “elevated position” and “bulky design” meant they would be “unduly prominent” and “incongruous features” in relation to the traditional character of the host building and its surroundings in the town centre conservation area.

Correspondence published by PEDW shows Ms Lloyd had made a number of complaints at how Monmouthshire council had handled the applications and objections from a neighbour.

One document stated the background to the couple purchasing the property and its planning history and inconsistencies with previously approved plans and its historic structure and steps they had taken to try and resolve them.

That stated the couple felt “lack of clarity over the outcome of the planning permission has led to tensions between neighbours”.

Mr Jones said the amended plan with the air source heat pump at ground level and screened from public view was, as the council had found, acceptable and he allowed it and the other works which included a roof over the link between the two properties and internal and external replacement of timber joinery and a first floor window.

He attached a number of conditions including a noise restriction on the air source heat pump.

Monmouthshire council’s head of planning Andrew Jones, who presented the inspector’s report to its February planning committee, told members: “It is a fairly sensitive site with lots of complexities attached to it.”

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He said it was “probably not fair to go into it in this public setting” but said he was “happy” to “set something up” for councillors to meet with him.