New Forest District Council extends period for Landmark Trust’s RAF Ibsley watch office application

EXTRA time is being allowed to decide if a disused Second World War military building in the Forest should be converted into holiday homes.

As reported in the A&T, The Landmark Trust applied to New Forest District Council last October for permission to convert RAF Ibsley’s watch office off Mockbeggar Lane into recreational lettings.

The council has now written to the applicant to inform them a time extension has been agreed to allow for further ecological surveys of the site. The consultation period on the proposed development now ends on 1st December.

NFDC granted the extension after receiving an objection from Natural England in February that said the development would have an adverse impact on the River Avon and other protected areas.

NE said: “The proposals result in direct loss of Avon Valley Special Protection Area and Ramsar designated site, as well as indirect impacts which will both have adverse impacts on the integrity of the special protection area and its qualifying features, including wintering birds. These effects cannot be appropriately mitigated.

“The planning proposal…is likely to lead to an increase in recreational disturbance across the Avon Valley designated sites, via increased visitors to the site during holiday lets, open days and events, leading to adverse impacts on the site integrity.”

The letter continued by saying the proposed works would lead to “increased nutrient inputs” into the River Avon, which is “particularly sensitive” to phosphorus.

“The development will damage or destroy the interest features for which Avon Valley Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) has been notified,” it added.

In its initial application, The Landmark Trust said it wants to redevelop the old watch tower as a series of recreational lettings. The work would include installing a ground source heat pump, sewage treatment plant, rainwater drainage, services connections and parking spaces.

In a design and access statement, the trust said the derelict building has an “elegant, modernist” aesthetic and is now “possibly unique” due to its surviving concrete viewing balcony.

The applicants said: “The repair works will seek to recover and present the form, volumes and appearance of the watch office to evoke it as it was at the peak of its wartime activity between 1942 and 1946.

“We will prioritise representing the character of the interior spaces and external appearance, with secondary emphasis on the retention of surviving original fabric.”

The derelict watch office near Ringwood, one of 12 Second World War airfields in the Forest, was a fighter station for Spitfires. At its height in 1943 it hosted more than 150 P-47 Thunderbolt bombers, with 3,000 personnel.

It was also a location for the 1942 film The First of the Few, starring Leslie Howard and David Niven.

The Landmark Trust wants to restore the building for holiday accommodation for up to eight people in a bid to rescue the building from its “current state of near total dereliction”.

The trust took over the lease of the building, which has 84 years left, from the RAF Ibsley Airfield Heritage Trust. Somerley Estate owns the site.

The overhaul is estimated to cost £3.1m, and fundraising efforts have seen more than 70% of that total achieved.

A Landmark Trust spokesperson told the A&T: “The trust exists to save extraordinary yet at-risk historic buildings and offer them a new future.

“RAF Ibsley watch office played a crucial part in Britain’s defences during the Second World War, yet now stands crumbling and derelict; Landmark seeks to save the site and sensitively transform the important building into holiday accommodation.

“The planning application remains open and the charity continues to develop extensive site-specific seasonal ecological surveys, and to communicate with all appropriate statutory bodies.”