A FORMER hotel just off the A40 could be demolished and replaced with 12 new homes if planners approve the scheme.

Mount Craig Hall in Pencraig, seven miles north of Monmouth, was converted to 13 one and two-bedroom apartments some 40 years ago.

The proposal is for the demolition of all buildings and the construction of 12 dwellings comprising a mix of one, two, three and four-bedroom properties.

Mount Craig Hall was originally a farmhouse dating back to the early 1800s and was converted into a hotel during the 1930s and subdivided into several apartments in the 1980s.

It was purchased by the applicants Paramount Homes Ltd some 35 years ago, when it was already in use as apartments having already been converted, extended and altered from its hotel status.

The applicants say that attempted renovation works to several apartments have revealed major structural defects in the walls, partly caused by extensive dry rot.

Four apartments have been condemned as uninhabitable and the applicants are now struggling to obtain valid Energy Performance Certificates for the remaining apartments due to poor insulation and electrical work.

Whilst the application is in outline form, it is anticipated the dwellings will be two storeys high, lower than the existing building, and will each have a garden and parking.

The agent, CDB Planning and Architecture, states that the re-development of the site will enable the construction of energy efficient homes supported by a low carbon heating system in the form of air source heat pumps, solar panels and electric vehicle charges points.

The current complex is served by an old septic tank system with two inadequately sized drainage field soakaways, which is particularly inefficient in drainage and phosphate terms.

Comments on the application, number P253678/O, can be made on Herefordshire Council’s planning portal until Thursday, February 12.