The owner of a Bath property which has been operating without permission as a holiday let for up to 24 guests for a decade has lost his appeal against an enforcement notice.
Dorset Villa on Newbridge Road in Bath
A planning inspector has given Michael Newby-Vincent three months to cease the unauthorised use of the nine-bed semi-detached house at 14 Newbridge Road, also known as Dorset Villa, which is a popular venue for hen parties.
This week Mr Newby-Vincent told the Echo he now intends to turn the villa into a house in multiple occupation (HMO).
He had appealed to the Secretary of State against the enforcement notice issued in April 2024 by Bath and North East Somerset Council.
In 2023 Mr Newby-Vincent had sought retrospective permission to change the use from a guesthouse to commercial leisure holiday let accommodation for up to 24 people, but the application was refused.
The council’s reason was that the change of use without on-site management would result in additional noise and disturbance, which would cause “significant harm” to neighbours.
The notice issued by the council in April 2024 said that without planning permission, the “nil use” property had been turned into commercial holiday let accommodation.
Mr Newby-Vincent lodged an appeal two months later and planning inspector Chris Preston’s decision was published last month.
The inspector says there was at least one, and probably two, material changes of use in between the property being used as a boarding house and the start of the holiday let use.
Given the intervening uses, he says there would be no right of reversion to a guesthouse.
“The council is correct in its interpretation that the property had a ‘nil’ use in planning terms at the point at which the holiday letting use commenced.”
His report says that hen parties are evidently a primary source of bookings for the property which is advertised on Go-Hen. “I recognise that the use has been continuing for a number of years prior to the council taking formal action.
“However, of itself, that is not indicative that no issues have been caused and complaints have been made to the environmental health department over that period.
“Correspondence between the appellant and the EHO [environmental health officer] identifies that the complaints stemmed from noise associated with guests congregating outside the property, singing, talking loudly, music playing within the property, etc.
“No noise recordings have been provided such that no technical data is before me. I understand that the appellant requested copies of recordings that had been made from the neighbouring property, but the council did not provide the information, citing data protection issues. The appellant has provided no noise data of his own.
“Nonetheless it is not difficult to imagine that a group of such size, in high spirits at a celebratory event, will generate noise of the kind referred to, potentially late into the evening if returning from a night out or entertaining themselves at the property.”
The inspector’s report adds that the use of the house has caused significant harm to the living conditions of neighbouring properties, particularly No.16, and the fact that a number of suggested mitigation measures had been put forward is “perhaps a tacit acknowledgement that without control, the impact would be unacceptable”.
The inspector voices “significant reservations” about the effectiveness of the measures put forward: “The suggested curfew of 10.30 for outside areas, of which guests are informed, would require almost constant maintenance which would make it difficult to enforce. Moreover, the curfew is only likely to be managed reactively.”
He says the appellant has been living close by already and “actively tries to manage guests, but those efforts have not been successful on the balance of the evidence presented”.
The inspector notes that he is not satisfied that a condition to limit the number of days the property could be let would be sufficient to overcome concerns. “Overall, a holiday rental of this size and type seems wholly unsuited to a semi-detached dwelling in such close proximity to the neighbouring dwellinghouse and I have no doubt that the use has had a significant impact on neighbouring amenity.”
He says Mr Newby-Vincent asserted that the property might “fall idle” if the appeal was to be dismissed and the enforcement notice upheld, adding: “It is not for me to speculate on the uses to which the property could be put.”
The enforcement notice issued by the council gave one month for the use to stop.
The inspector says there is “clear public interest in requiring that the use ceases given the significant harm to neighbouring amenity but a three-month period would “strike a proportionate balance” to allow those affected to make alternative arrangements in terms of bookings and for Mr Newby-Vincent to make necessary administrative arrangements.
Speaking to the Bath Echo last year, Mr Newby-Vincent dismissed claims that the property was a “party house”, saying it was a self-catering holiday let.
In response to the inspector’s decision, he told us this week there had been a total of four complaint letters, each of which had instigated six-month evaluations by the council, and been “dismissed”.
Mr Newby-Vincent said that during the appeal, his solicitors, through the Freedom of Information Act, had received confirmation from the council that only one household had made complaints – believed to be more than 200 over nine years.
He added that the house had been used from September 2003 to November 2013 as a student let (when he and his mother had bought it) and there was a change of tenant from 2011-2013 where Bath Community College had taken the house on.
He said: “We claimed a 10-year use of 14 students residing in the house and provided evidence, but the inspector accepted only eight as the remaining two years were operated under a HMO.
“The council confirmed there was no HMO visit and it was an admin facility so as to go from business rates to council tax. The physical use of the building did not change.
“The HMO was given in January 2012 and revoked in August 2013. So my lawyers insisted that we had proven a 10-year use and therefore there was no material change of use and that the building had a sui generis use.” (In planning law this Latin term, meaning ‘of its own kind’, is used to describe uses that don’t fall within any specific use class).
Mr Newby-Vincent said that following the order to shut down the holiday let, a planning application to change the property from nil use abandoned, as designated by the council enforcement officer in April 2024, to a house in multiple occupation is now in progress.
He added: “We hope to let the nine bedrooms with en-suites from January 2026.”
