A FORMER Wirral 'bed and breakfast' guest house will be turned into flats if plans are approved.

Proposals for 15 Stanley Road in Hoylake include demolition of its existing garage and re-modelling the existing first-floor flats.

The ground floor will also be converted into two apartments and two double storey side extensions built to provide a further four flats.

A 15-space car park will be created at the front of the property with electric vehicle charging points, secure visitor cycle parking and a secure residents cycle store. There will also be private and communal garden spaces.

According to a design and access statement submitted with the plans to Wirral Council. "The proposed change of use from a bed and breakfast with two first floor apartments to multiple apartments is one that is in keeping with this part of Stanley Road".

'Number 15' is believed to have been built around 1914. Its owner was a local sugar merchant called James Allan MacFie, who lived in West Kirby in 1911.

His family were Scottish sugar merchants and had a branch of the family business in Temple Street Liverpool from 1838 –1938 at which point the company was sold to United Molasses and then Tate and Lyle.

The MacFie family were recorded as living in the house in the 1921 census and again in the 1939 directory.

The house was designed in the Arts and Crafts style and incorporated rooms for both the owners family and domestic staff, which in 1921 included one servant but in 1939 this had increased to three.

Whilst the building was constructed as a family home and operated in this way for the best part of 90 years, it has, in recent years, been a business premises. It was granted planning permission to operate as a guest house in 2007. The bed and breakfast business closed in August last year.

The design and access statement continued: "The proposed change of use from a bed and breakfast with two first floor apartments to multiple apartments is one that is in keeping with this part of Stanley Road.

"We believe that this scheme will have a positive impact on the building and the conservation area and could serve as an example of how to deal with large houses such as this as our society's housing requirements change.

"Heritage assets such as this house deserve to be saved and schemes such as this one will allow this to happen, both practically and financially."

To read the plans in full, go to: https://online.wirral.gov.uk/planning/index.html?fa=getApplication&id=229116