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30
Sept
Landlord seeks green light for Harrogate hotel conversion – 30 years after doing the work
A property owner who converted a Harrogate hotel into flats has applied for a certificate of lawfulness – more than 30 years later.
According to documents submitted with the planning application, Stuart Bradford bought the triple-fronted property at 2-4 Strawberry Dale in the early 1990s, before which it had been La Bastille Hotel since at least the 1970s.
By the end of 1993, Mr Bradford had installed kitchens in each of the hotel suites, turning them into 12 lettable units, which were all registered for council tax and rented out to tenants.
But it was only in February 2025 – more than three decades later – that Mr Bradford applied for a certificate of lawfulness for the use of seven of the flats as separate dwellings.
The property is located next to Blueline Taxis.
Seeking a certificate of lawfulness is often done instead of applying for retrospective planning permission if development work has been in place long enough to become immune from enforcement action – the so-called 10-year rule.
That application was refused in April 2025 on the grounds that the evidence supporting it did not sufficiently demonstrate that the building had been occupied continuously as seven flats for a period of 10 years or more.
The latest application for a certificate of lawfulness seeks to address what it calls the "shortcomings of the previous application" and to secure confirmation that the change of use of the hotel into 12 flats is indeed lawful.
A decision on the case is expected tomorrow (September 30).
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