4:21pm Tuesday 13th May 2008
By James Williams
PARTS of historic Heywood House will be turned into residential units after a legal wrangle was resolved.
Developers want to convert the former National Trust headquarters, a Jacobean style Grade II listed building near Westbury, from commercial to residential use.
Councillors at West Wiltshire District Council backed the application in September 2007 but a condition of the planning permission threatened to put the development in jeopardy.
The applicants refused to sign up to a "clawback" arrangement, requiring them to make a financial contribution towards affordable homes.
They insisted the clause could put the whole project in doubt, as profit margins are very small to begin with.
Members of the planning committee decided to modify the planning permission to exclude this clawback arrangement at a meeting on Thursday night.
The project will see the main house converted into seven units, the butcher's shop and gardener's cottage turned into single dwellings, the coach houses house five terraced units and the archive store turned into two cottages.
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