Three barns in the same yard around a listed farmhouse can be converted into accommodation - either as a home or for holidays.

The owners of Grove Farmhouse, a Grade II-listed building, and its associated barns at the end of Grove Cottages and now adjacent to the new houses recently built on William Morris Way, have been given listed building consent for three different applications.

In two of them they will convert old barns for holiday cottages and one will see a larger detached barn made into a small two-bed cottage.

One of the barns is the bullpen barn, an L-shaped barn in a state of poor repair adjacent to the main house.

The plan is to convert the building into two single-storey one-bed cottages with a bathroom and open plan kitchen and living area each.

But it will need some work.

The application says: “The roof is in a poor state of repair, and the roof timbers are being affected by water ingress. The walls have been adapted and altered over the years and do not resemble much of the original building.

"A large section of the roof has been replaced with asbestos corrugated sheet and an asbestos ridge.”

Also being converted to holiday accommodation is the Small Barn in the yard surrounding the farmhouse. As its name suggests it’s a very small, single-story structure. The approved plan shows a mezzanine bedroom will be constructed in the roof above a  single open-plan kitchen and living room. There is not enough space for a bath, just a lavatory and shower room.

A much larger barn called The Hallett an also be converted but this time into  a two-bedroomed house.

The first floor has a wall separating the general storage space from a tractor shed – in the conversion the wall will be kept, with a door put in and the tractor shed will be used as a kitchen and the storage as living room, with a hall and lavatory also constructed. The upper floor hayloft space will be divided into two bedrooms and a bathroom.

While all three barns are not listed, because they are close to the listed farmhouse - are in its curtilage in planning jargon - special listed building consent was needed.

Council planners in all three cases said the impact of the changes on the building would be acceptable.