PLANS have been unveiled to convert a vacant Taunton pub premises into a house of multiple occupation with 15 bedrooms.

Addison Harper LLP has applied for planning permission and listed building consent for the alterations at the former Pen and Quill in Shuttern.

Construction work is already underway after permission was previously granted to create five flats and two apartments, but the owner now wants to reconfigure the proposed flat layouts to accommodate the larger project.

The pub closed a number of years ago and the property was recently sold at public auction as recently as December 2022.

If Somerset West and Taunton Council (SWT) grants permission, the 15 rooms with en suite bathrooms would be built over three floors

There would be shared kitchen/dining/living space on the ground floor level and access to a private courtyard garden.

Additional shared spaces would include a number of studies, a laundry room and a cinema/living room.

Any alterations to the outside of the existing building would be limited to the removal of parts of a single storey rear extension to form external courtyards.

A statement with the planning application to SWT says: "The proposed plans are largely based on the previously approved planning drawings for seven flats so as to ensure that the impact on the

listed building is kept to a minimum.

"The proposal offers the opportunity to continue to develop and make good use of an unutilised site which has been vacant for a number of years, and is in a sustainable location."

It adds: "The proposal provides a positive, high quality development to the local area and has been carefully designed to be sensitive to its surrounding context.

"The proposed scheme will not cause any detrimental impact or overbearing to existing or future residents in the area."

After the Pen and Quill was judged "no longer viable" as a pub, it was put on the market in 2011.

It failed to sell and the previous owners then secured planning consent to partially convert the building for residential use before selling it.

The current application says agreement has been reached to pre-let the proposed units to the local authority.