'Our quiet neighbourhood united to fight this appalling and potentially devastating plan - and won'

Plans to convert a house and swimming pool building to a 10-bed shared home have been thrown out after dozens objected. The proposals were for a four-bedroom detached Edwardian house on Grosvenor Street, Prestwich, along with the adjacent former Ivy Bank Swim School.

Plans submitted to Bury council in June revealed the intention to create a 10-bed house of multiple occupation (HMO) which included bedrooms in the pool building. The swimming school closed following the pressures of the Covid pandemic with the owner retiring and putting the house and pool building on the market.

Documents in support of the plans, submitted by applicant GMPE Property Ltd said: “It is proposed to change the use of the property from a house and its incidental swimming pool building to a large HMO. There will be a functional and, to an extent, physical link between the main and pool building, although no interlink extension is proposed.

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“The end users may be students, they may not. More mixed HMO markets are forming, including social groups such as young professionals, international migrant workers, low-skilled workers, benefit recipients and divorcees.” The plans led to the formation of a ‘No to the Ivy Bank HMO’ residents’ group.

Bury Council has now refused the plans on several grounds. These included that the development would be ‘seriously detrimental to the residential amenities of nearby occupiers, by reason of the noise, disturbance and general activity associated with the proposed use’.

The refusal notice said: “The proposed density and layout as shown would lead to a poor arrangement of individual and shared accommodation available for the future occupiers of the property and as