Severely ill couple forced to sell 'dream home' to support seaside town's tourism

The location is connected a enactment of B&Bs conscionable a fewer minutes' locomotion distant from the formation (Image: Google)

A mates aged 68 and 70 who person been diagnosed with crab and Parkinson's disease are being forced to merchantability their seaside location successful Great Yarmouth successful what they person described arsenic a "living nightmare".

Ann and Stephen Frew bought the five-bedroom spot connected Trafalgar Road successful December 2021, envisioning moving their extended household successful arsenic caretakers and readying refurbishments of the room and bath areas to amended accessibility and crook it into their "dream home".

Just months aft shelling retired £40,000 connected renovations, however, the mates received an enforcement announcement from the council, saying they didn't person support to usage the gathering - which antecedently functioned arsenic the Merivon Guesthouse - successful a residential capacity.

The enactment cited the property's inclusion successful the borough's GY6 policy, restricting the change-of-use from tourist accommodation to backstage dwellings successful a bid to support the section holidaymaker-fuelled economy.

Mr and Mrs Frew submitted a retrospective readying exertion to alteration the building's usage to residential, but it was refused by the assembly connected the grounds of an "unjustified" nonaccomplishment of tourer provision. An entreaty to the readying inspectorate was dismissed connected the aforesaid ground and the location has been enactment connected the marketplace for £250,000 arsenic a concern venture.

£648 cardinal is generated by tourism to Great Yarmouth each year, according to the assembly (Image: Getty)

The mates told the Eastern Daily Press they person been surviving "in implicit limbo" since receiving the notice. Mrs Frew said: "We were wholly blindsided. The enforcement announcement threw our satellite and what we wanted to bash completely.

"During the conveyancing process, the solicitors went done everything they should person done but the searches had thing astir a readying regularisation connected the property."

However, 1 neighbour wrote to the assembly alleging that Mr and Mrs Frew had known astir its past arsenic a guesthouse due to the fact that they "had to region each its furnishings and contents earlier moving in". They said: "The Merivon was a thriving concern nether the ownership of Jane Reynolds for astir 20 years. When she sold it to the existent owners, they made it precise wide that they had nary volition of moving a concern and that it would beryllium a backstage dwelling."

The neighbour besides backed the section authority's position, writing: "Trafalgar Road is the showcase thoroughfare successful Great Yarmouth for B&Bs, it is utilized successful promotional advertizing due to the fact that of the uniqueness, and it needs to enactment that way."

Mrs Frew questioned the viability of these businesses, however, by pointing to 4 different guesthouses connected the thoroughfare that are besides presently connected the market. She said: "The assembly says each each guesthouse generates £87,000 per twelvemonth into the section economy. But if this is specified a flourishing business, wherefore are they each up for sale?"

A spokesperson for Great Yarmouth Borough Council told the EDP that the argumentation protecting tourer accommodation from change-of-use has "been successful spot for immoderate time" and is an "effective mode to support the captious tourism commercialized for the section economy".

According to the section authority, tourism pumps £648 cardinal into the country each twelvemonth and provides 23% of each jobs.