Rundown shop in Gosport is set to be converted into flats

The existing shop at 89 Forton Road, which has been empty since 1995, will become part of the ground floor flat after planning permission was granted by Gosport Borough Council for a part two-storey and part single-storey rear extension, an external staircase and changes to windows and doors to create a flat on place of the shop as well as above it.

The new ground floor flat will have a kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and open plan dining room and lounge. The one-bedroom flat upstairs above the shop, with its own entrance, will be a similar size and layout with a loft room, which might be a second bedroom.

The site is sandwiched between Irina’s Sewing Room, a dressmaking shop at 87, and Top Tip nail bar at 91. Plans showed, once finished, the two flats will have brown clay roof tiles, white UPVC window frames, red brick on the first floor and white render on the ground floor across the front bay window. Two new roof lights will be in the rear roof.

Recommending approval, the planning officer’s report said the shop has been empty “for a considerable length of time” and overall, the development was acceptable. Building control said there are inadequate means of escaping a fire from the proposed loft room down through the lounge at first-floor level.