JD Wetherspoon has entered plans to convert a Grade II listed house in Ely into one of its establishments.
The pub chain confirmed last year that it had bought 24 St Mary’s Street which once housed King’s Ely students.
As well as its change of use to a drinking and eating establishment, the proposals outline details of alterations on property and an extension to the back of the building.
Documents also say an outbuilding/garage on the site will also be demolished, ventilation equipment will be installed and there will be acoustic fences built in the courtyard to minimise sound.
The application’s design and access statement says: “The scheme we have put forward seeks to bring the listed building back into use and provide it with a new purpose.
“Due to the nature of a ‘Public House’ most of the interesting spaces within the interior of this listed building will be used by customers and therefore its historic value can be appreciated by the general public.”
It continues: “The proposal seeks to sympathetically bring the building back into use in order to prevent it being another boarded-up, vacant listed building.
“We believe that the interventions and alterations we propose, and the repair and preservation responsibilities which the owner will take on, outweigh the minor changes to the building’s fabric.”
While the ground floor interior will be opened up and also feature the extension, the first floor will be used for customer toilets.
Staff facilities will be created on the third floor.
The current car park will be transformed into an outdoor garden and service yard.
Proposed trading hours are Sunday-Thursday 7am-11:30pm; Friday and Saturday 7am-12:30am. It may also open for an extra hour on occasions like Christmas Eve and Sunday before Bank Holiday Mondays.
King’s Ely bought the property at 24 St Mary’s Street in the 1980s but stopped using it four years ago. It was offered for sale at the end of 2018 and later bought by the pub chain.
JD Wetherspoon submitted the proposals to East Cambridgeshire District Council on Monday (September 7). It currently operates over 900 premises across the United Kingdom.
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