Monday, June 14 2004

A former pig barn with planning permission to be developed into a four-bedroom house was sold at auction for an unprecedented £395,000 on Friday last week.

The unusually inflated sum is accounted for by the fact that the plot is situated in the heart of the Newlands Valley in the Lake District, one of the most celebrated and carefully conserved areas of natural beauty in the world.

The property was initially given a guide price of £275,000, but even the auctioneers, CSH Property Consultants, were apprehensive that it would command such a price.

A spokesperson for the firm said before the sale on Friday: ‘It is very difficult to predict how much it will fetch. It is an incredibly rare for a property to come up for sale in this locality, so there are no comparables.’ The barn was subsequently bid up to a staggering £395,000, £120,000 above the initial guide price, and was finally sold to an unnamed local resident.

The property is situated on a 2 acre site nestled into the North Lakeland foothills and the new owner will enjoy dramatic views across the Newlands Valley. Detailed consent has been secured to convert the current building, a tired ex-piggery, into a 139 square metre, 4-bedroomed house. It is reportedly the first residential development site in the Newlands Valley to be granted full planning consent in over thirty years.

The purchase may yet prove to be a very shrewd investment. Neil Foster, Managing Director of CSH Residential, has valued the developed property at approximately £750,000.

CSH Property Consultants