Plans to convert the former County Hotel in to apartments and build a new additional residential unit adjacent to the refurbished property have been submitted to Cheshire East Council.
The County Hotel on Alderley Road closed in November 2009 and since then the site has been derelict. The building has fallen into a sorry state of decline and has been subject to a number of incidences of vandalism and theft.
The building was originally known as 'Arden House' around the 1880s and was a semi detached residential villa set amidst several other Victorian villas within their own spacious grounds, including 'Lindow Grove' now known as The Merlin and 'Merchistown' now known as 'Yesterdays' the former nightclub.
Full planning permission is being sought, on behalf of Scott Burgess and Aus-Bore Homes Ltd, to create a pair of properties which have the scale of the original Harden Park villas. All the recent extensions to Arden House will be removed and both buildings will be constructed as apartments with basement parking for the new building.
The former County Hotel will be extended and refurbished to create six residential apartments and a new four storey block of 8 residential apartments will be erected.
The site, which is situated within the North Cheshire Green Belt, will be remodelled to remove the extensive hardstandings and will be well screened with the boundary treatment being reinstated to the original form of boundary wall with planting, trees and shrubs to enclose the site and provide a much softer approach to the Harden Park group of buildings.
The perceived increase in floor area is described as being 20% above existing, 25% when the basement is calculated, which is within Greenbelt Policy.
According to the Planning Statement "there are very special circumstances, particularly with housing supply rates currently not being met, the improvement of the site in terms of both visual and residential amenity and the opportunity to provide a comprehensive landscaping scheme" which justify the development as outweighing the harm to Green Belt.
Two planning applications have been refused for the County Hotel site – one for a 30 bed extension was refused in 1995 and one for a 40 bed lodge was refused in 1997. The main concerns with both these applications was the loss of protected trees, issues of car parking and conflict with Green Belt.
The planning application for the development at the site of the former County Hotel, reference 11/4542M, can be viewed on the Cheshire East Council website.
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Take a look at the ties of today's Ryleys pupils, the blue in there is inherited from the blue and silver which formed the uniform of Harden House. I can't claim these as my own memories - my husband and his brother were Harden House boys.