SWANSEA: Nearly 20 years of French dining could give way to 13 rented rooms at the Pantygwydr

The tables could come out of the Pantygwydr, and 13 bedrooms could go in.

A full planning application is now with Swansea Council to turn the corner restaurant on Oxford Street into two shared houses, one downstairs and one above it.

They would be houses in multiple occupation, which means rooms let out one at a time to people who are not related, sharing a kitchen and a living room.

Six bedrooms would go in where the restaurant is now, according to the plans. Another seven would fill the flat on the first and second floors.

When the idea first appeared in May it was 12 rooms. The ground floor has gained one since.

The planning statement does not dress up who they are for. The building would serve the city’s growing student population, it says, and on that basis it argues the people living there would be transient.

It lists the university’s Singleton campus, Singleton Hospital, the Uplands and the city centre as all being close by.

The one in ten rule, and why the applicant says this corner is under it

Sandfields has argued about the number of shared houses on its streets for years, and the council does cap them.

In the part of the city the council manages most tightly, no more than a quarter of the homes within 50 metres of a property can be shared houses. Outside that zone the limit is one in ten.

The statement says this corner falls outside the tighter zone, so the one in ten figure is the one that applies.

The applicant’s agents say they counted three shared houses within 50 metres. Two more would make five, which they calculate as 8.47 per cent of the properties around it, just under the line.

They counted the same three in May. Whether the council accepts the arithmetic is now the question in front of it, and neighbours can have their say before it decides.

Big rooms, no parking, no garden

The rooms would not be small ones. The plans put the smallest at 14.8 square metres, more than twice the 6.5 the council asks for, and the largest at 28.4. Each would have its own bathroom.

The building has no parking, and the statement turns that into an argument in its favour. Using a council guidance document that has since lapsed, the applicant’s agents calculate that a restaurant of that size with a flat above it would have generated demand for around 16 spaces, against seven for 13 tenants. Bikes would go in the courtyard.

A hotel, then a beer cellar, then 18 years of French cooking

The Pantygwydr went up as a Victorian hotel and the basement was still in use as a beer cellar when the building was marketed. An independent French restaurant has traded on the ground floor since 2008.

The freehold was listed at £325,000 with Astleys and marked as sold subject to contract in May. The statement says the building has been advertised for years without anyone wanting it as a restaurant, has no garden, and is not suited to a family.

One other thing has changed since the spring. The first version promised no changes to the outside of the building. This one asks for minor ones, plus a bin and bike store in the courtyard.