12:30pm Wednesday 16th November 2011
By Richard Vernalls
NEW windows worth £23,000 meant for pensioners’ homes are sitting idle because of a planning ruling banning their use.
The new double glazing is meant for the 17th century Coventry Almhouses in the Holloway in Droitwich.
The Coventry Charity, which runs 43 almhouses, bought the windows to improve heating efficiency and ‘matched’ them to the style of building, with the plan to fit them before winter.
They were for an extension dating back to 1934, rather than the original almhouses building.
But when the charity took advice on an unrelated matter, Wychavon District Council advised that it needed listed building consent, because the extension was attached to the 1688 building.
The matter went before the district council’s planning committee and was refused, on the conservation officer’s advice, despite the Droitwich Civic Society and parish council raising no objections.
The conservation officer wrote that the new windows “would be harmful to the special interest of the listed building” to the chagrin of the charity and its residents.
It has since emerged the windows actually being replaced are not even the original ones.
The charity is now appealing to a planning inspector arguing it has done everything it can on a limited budget to buy windows which closely match the original design, while acting in good faith to keep the almhouses warm and useful for tenants.
The charity’s tenants pay a small rent, which is the only source of funding.
Meanwhile, people living in the almhouses have been left with rusting draughty, old windows.
The charity in its appeal says it is “a caring charity doing everything within our financial restraints to maintain and upkeep our almhouses”.
It said: “We have gone to great lengths to protect the 1686 block, but we also have to take into consideration the use of the buildings.
"We have older people feeling the cold and to solve this problem we bought windows to best protect our residents without visually impacting the outside of the building.”
The result of the planning appeal is not expected until January.
The almhouses would never have been built if not for a bet on a racehorse won by Henry Coventry, son of Lord Coventry in the 17th century.
The loser, Sir John Packington, was required by the terms of the wager to endow a ‘hospital’ (the almhouses).
Sir John paid with two farms which formed the charity endowment, which included a school long-since absorbed by the local authority.
The charity was called the Coventry Almhouses.
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