A FORMER GP surgery will be converted into flats after the Planning Inspectorate overturned Barnsley Council’s decision to refuse the plans.

Plans were submitted to turn the now-closed Caxton House Surgery, on High Street in Grimethorpe, into seven apartments and one studio flat in 2022.

The council refused to grant permission for the scheme, due to ‘sub-standard of internal and external amenity’.

A council planning officer’s report stated that some rooms did not have windows on the plans, or a small single window, which would ‘not allow sufficient light’ into the rooms.

However, the applicant appealed the decision and the case was decided by the government-run body, which overturned the decision.

Although the Planning Inspectorate acknowledged that the apartments would ‘fall below’ space standards set out in the South Yorkshire ‘residential design guide’, they added it would be ‘only very marginal’.