A FORMER Oakdale hotel will be converted in a flat complex after Caerphilly council approved plans.

An application was passed by the planning committee on Wednesday, February, 10 and will see the Grade II-listed building, formerly The Oakdale Hotel, on Central Avenue converted into nine flats and three homes.

The building on Central Avenue was last used as a public house but has remained empty for a number of years.

The three to four storey building has an outbuilding, garden and car park and lies on the corner of the village square and within a conservation area.

The applicant, Mr S Poynter, of Hamilton Street, Cardiff, will demolish the outbuilding and car park and remove a small flat – roofed extension to the hotel to make way for three storey, three bedroom terraced homes.

Four of the flats would be one-bedroom and five would have two bedrooms.

Plans will also see a number of listed features such as ‘dumb waiters’ restored as well as retaining external signage over one entrance onto Central Avenue.

The car park will provide 12 spaces and an existing wall onto Central Avenue will be taken down and replaced with a lower wall and railings.

The council’s conservation and design officer said the proposed development would enable the former public house to be brought back into beneficial use that should both secure the future of the listed building itself and as an important building within the surrounding conservation area.

Consultation has taken place with 26 neighbouring properties and one late objection was received.

The objection claimed that access to the car park is not safe, parking provision is inadequate and that the outbuilding could be inhabited by bats.

The planning committee passed the development on the condition that the outbuilding was investigated as a “precautionary measure.”