Airbnb Conversion Without Permission Allowed To Stay

A call to allow an airbnb beach hut once sited on a Dorset sandbank to continue to be used for holiday accommodation on the edge of a Pembrokeshire village has been approved.

In an application before Pembrokeshire County Council planners, Mr and Mrs Bazeley sought permission for a retrospective change of use of a timber hut to a glamping holiday accommodation with outdoor kitchen and services at Brynderwen, St Dogmaels.

Local community council St Dogmaels objected to the application on the grounds that the proposal is outside the boundary of the village.

A supporting statement through agent Llyr Evans Planning Ltd said: “Brynderwen has been in the ownership of the applicants’ family for 150 years, originally by the applicant’s great-great-great-grandfather, before being handed down through the generations.

“When the applicant’s father died in 2022 Mr and Mrs Bazeley moved back to Brynderwen to manage the holding and make it financially viable. This includes recently gaining planning permission for two bespoke holiday cottages to the northeast of this site.”

It adds: “The hut was sited on Mudeford Sandbank in Dorset from 1962 to 2007 where it was a holiday destination for the applicants’ family.  In 2007 the hut was moved from Dorset to its current position at Brynderwen.”

It says the hut was originally used as a feed storage and then a family day hut/ leisure use for BBQs and campfires before being renovated in 2022, subsequently offered for short-term lets between Jun and September of last year.

The statement adds the tourism development would contribute to the small-scale agricultural operations of 13-acre Brynderwen and “would make a valuable contribution towards the provision of tourism accommodation in the area, to economic development and to the resilience of the rural economy”.

The beach hut, called Salad Days, is listed on Airbnb, where it has already attracted 50 reviews, with an overall 4.98 out of five.

An officer report recommending approval said the small scale of the accommodation “provided within such close proximity to the settlement is considered acceptable in regard to the impact on the area,” and “Due to the location of the building being some distance from any neighbouring properties the development does not have a significant impact on neighbouring amenity.”

The application was conditionally approved by county planners.