Milton Keynes planners set to grapple with ‘dangerous’ Two Wrestlers

Planners are set to grapple with proposals to refurbish and build new homes on the ‘dangerous’ Two Wrestlers site in Newport Pagnell.
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The Two Wrestlers grade two listed building in Tickford Street is the home for a successful car repair business, and a medieval house that the owner’s agent says is in a dangerous state.

But the owner, Julie Lally, has found herself trapped by the enormous costs of repairing the historic building, which is currently worth nothing on the property market.

Now, after a year of talks with heritage gurus at Milton Keynes Council she and her planning agents, Building Tectonics, of Fenny Stratford, have put together an “escape plan”.

The Two Wrestlers (Google)The Two Wrestlers (Google)
The Two Wrestlers (Google)

They want to part demolish and repair the building and convert it into two two bed homes, and build a two storey extension to provide a further nine one-bed dwellings/flats.

In a planning application lodged with Milton Keynes Council, Tony Keller, of agent Building Tectonics, says: “My client runs a successful car repair workshop on the site at the moment and has considered refurbishment and the modernisation of all the existing buildings.

“However, the cost of refurbishing the listed building that is in an unsafe state could not be justified or even financed by the current enterprise. It is impossible.

“My client is fully aware of her legal and moral obligation in respect of the listed building and wishes to find a solution – an escape plan.”

The planning agent says the intention is to retain, repair and adapt the buildings of historic interest, demolish other ‘industrial sheds’ and build new fit for purpose dwellings on the site.

The listed building application, which can be seen on the counci’s planning portal, also gives a run down of the wattle and daub-built building’s history, and why it is called the Two Wrestlers.

In 1753 it was recorded as a pub called The Two Wrestlers in reference to two of its earliest landlords.

The building ceased to be a pub in August 1956 after which it became a private house and then a garage, the background papers state.

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