PLANS have been submitted to transform the first floor of two warehouses in Cox’s Yard in Stratford into guest accommodation.
The application, submitted by brewery company Wells and Co, is for a guest house with two bedrooms and a separate one-bedroom holiday apartment.
These would be directly underneath the second floor of the former timber yard on Bridgefoot, where the Attic Theatre and resident fringe theatre company Tread the Boards rehearse and perform. The ground floor cafe and kitchen area will also remain unchanged and continue to provide food and drink at the entertainment venue.
This is a revised planning application which follows an application for both the first and second floors to change use from theatre to guest accommodation. This had proved unpopular as it would have meant the loss of a significant theatre, leisure and entertainment space in the town.
Planning consultants at Stratford District Council are now confident there can be no objection to the change of use as the theatre is remaining on the second floor and in theory will still be able to operate once the guest accommodation has been built.
While Stratford Town Council has given its approval to the change of use at Cox’s Yard, provided that the second floor theatre space is retained.
A date has not yet been set for the Cox’s Yard application to go before SDC’s planning committee.
Cox’s Yard has for many years been a venue for entertainment, most famously as a music venue which proved very popular with the town’s residents until it closed in 2012. Historically, the site used to be a timber warehouse owned by James Cox who opened his business in 1839, when there was a building boom.
