Plans to part-demolish and redevelop a Surrey property designed by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, where he lived for 10 years and wrote his most famous work, The Hound Of The Baskervilles, have been thrown into doubt by the high court.
Cranston J ruled that, in granting planning permission that would see the Grade II listed Victorian premises transformed into eight separate houses, Waverley Borough Council failed properly to appreciate that its “optimum viable use” was as a single dwelling, and that a rival scheme would achieve that.
Conan Doyle expert John Gibson won a ruling quashing the council’s grant of planning permission and listed building consent to developer Fossway Ltd in respect of the Sherlock Holmes creator’s former home, Undershaw, set in four acres at the Hindhead Crossroads near Haslemere, Surrey.
Gibson said the building should be protected as a heritage asset for its historic literary significance, and that his case was backed by famous names including Stephen Fry, writer Ian Rankin and Booker Prize nominated author Julian Barnes, who set his novel Arthur And George in Undershaw.
The judge said a rival planning application to keep Undershaw as a single dwelling, put forward by Max Norris, who was interested in buying the property for £600,000, “appeared on the horizon at the last minute” and was ultimately granted planning permission in August 2010, a month before the Fossway scheme.
He said that the council was obliged to treat this alternative scheme as a “highly material planning consideration” when considering, at a meeting in June 2010, whether to approve Fossway’s plans.
He continued: “It meant that the optimum use was also the optimum viable use, albeit not the most profitable use. Thus the Fossway proposals were not only not the optimum viable use but a use which would have prevented that use through rendering impossible the implementation of any planning permission for Undershaw’s restoration to a single dwelling-house.”
He said that while the council’s planning officer had drawn the committee’s attention to the late application for planning permission and that they should consider the rival schemes on their individual merits when assessing whether Fossway’s proposal was acceptable, this “did not go far enough” because it failed to identify Mr Norris’ scheme as the “optimum viable use”.
He added: “The committee members acted on her advice and thus, through no fault of their own, erred in law.”
He said that the council also failed to meet its statutory obligation to English Heritage about the proposal, having sent a letter and not pursued the matter when no reply was received, adding: “Given the significance of the proposals for a designated heritage asset, it was incumbent on the council to follow up the matter when English Heritage failed to respond.”
Paul Stinchcombe QC, representing Mr Gibson at the hearing earlier this month, said that his client had founded the Undershaw Preservation Trust, and that there was strong public support for preserving the home where Conan Doyle resurrected the world–famous detective, in the 1903 tale The Adventure of the Empty House. In total, he claimed that there were 1,360 objections, including from the Victorian Society and local MP Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary.
However, he said that the property, which was used as a hotel since the 1920s before being left empty in 2005, had been allowed to fall into disrepair by Fossway, who the judge said had “clearly bought Undershaw for its development potential”.
He said that Conan Doyle occupied Undershaw between 1897 and 1907, and wrote 14 Sherlock Holmes stories there, including his most famous work, The Hound of the Baskervilles, in 1902, the same year he received his knighthood.
Despite its literary importance, the council approved the Fossway redevelopment scheme in September 2010. It involved using concrete blocks to divide Undershaw into a terrace of three houses and the erection of a new three–storey east wing to provide five new townhouses. The scheme would also involve some demolition and the conversion of the stable block into garages.
Tim Mould QC, for the council, said at the hearing that Undershaw was of unexceptional quality architecturally, and that only its literary association with Conan Doyle had resulted in it being listed. He said that the council was entitled to take the view that the redevelopment would meet the objectives of preserving and safeguarding that literary association.
R (on the application of Gibson) v Waverley Borough Council Administrative (Cranston J) 30 May 2012
Paul Stinchcombe QC and Ned Helme (instructed by Irwin Mitchell) for the claimant
Tim Mould QC (instructed by Waverley Borough Council) for the defendant
