Highland planners grant permission for Fort Augustus B&B to more than double in size
A bed-and-breakfast looks set for a major expansion after plans were given the green light.
Applicant Alasdair MacLellan has secured planning permission to build an additional floor on top of the Appin Guest House in Fort Augustus.
The building, which is currently just a single-storey, accommodates five guest bedrooms - as well as a kitchen, dining areas for the guests and another bedroom for use by the manager.
But the site looks set to more than double its guest capacity after permission was granted to add an additional floor to the building, while also extending the ground-floor's north-eastern flank to accommodate a laundry room and store.
This would result in the newly-enlarged one-and-three-quarter storey site boasting 11 guest bedrooms, while also providing further staff accommodation in the form of a flat.
The northern corner of the ground floor’s south-west wing would also be extended to create a separately accessible kitchen/living/dining area, with stairs in that room leading up to three of the eight new first-floor bedrooms. These three bedrooms would also be located behind an upstairs doorway that could conceivably be used to close them off from the rest of the upstairs accommodation.
This suggests that these three bedrooms will form part of the flatted accommodation for staff, although the layout plans make no distinction between whether the various bedrooms are designated for guests or staffs. However, the refit of the building will result in the loss of the existing manager's bedroom on the ground floor, with that room being subsumed into a larger breakfast room and stairwell for access to the first-floor guest bedrooms.
Externally, the newly-enlarged bed-and-breakfast will also increase its number of parking spaces on site to 13, as well as provide secure cycle storage and bin storage facilities.
There were no objections from the council's transport planning team to the additional car parking, who said there "appears to be ample space on the site to achieve the intended number of parking spaces".
There were also no objections from the public.
Granting permission, council officers said: "The proposed extension increases the scale and massing of the existing property. However, the size of the plot is sufficiently large to accommodate the extension and does not increase the existing footprint.
"As a detached property the increase in the height to one-and-three-quarter storeys is reasonable."
They added that a neighbouring property to the north-east is already one-and-three quarter storeys in height, whilst the property immediately to the south-west, which is also a bed-and-breakfast called Sonas, is orientated in such a way that there is no privacy issue.
"The juxtaposition of the southwest wing relative to Sonas means that any overlooking from the first floor is restricted to the public realm of the front garden and a gable with a high level gable window."
The planners concluded: "The proposal is considered as an acceptable scale and form of development that is neither incongruous nor imposing within the immediate vicinity."
