Home for a pint

For those people who have difficulty leaving the pub to go home at night, the answer might be to move into one. Throughout the capital, pubs are converting very nicely into homes.

Since legislation in the late 1980s effectively split the business of brewing beer from pub ownership, there has emerged a small number of large pub companies that are sorting out their property portfolios and selling unprofitable public houses.

But not all pub conversions have been easy. The conversion of the Grade II listed Jack Straw's Castle in Hampstead, which recently came onto the market as six flats priced between £350,000 and £2 million, divided the community for years.

Among the areas with much conversion activity are Hackney - with Stoke Newington a prime location - Islington, Kentish Town, Battersea, Wandsworth and Stockwell, where a number of ex-pubs now contain more flats than hand pumps.

Councils are less happy about granting 'change of use'from pub to residential in central areas. James Rideout, at the Kensington office of Hamptons International, says this is because of a lack of space in the centre of town.

'You won't get the change of use unless you have parking spaces for the new residents, and most local authorities won't allow this,' he says.

However, developers still chance their arm. A number of applications have been submitted for conversion of The Blenheim, in Cale Street, Chelsea, while the boarded-up Ennismore Arms on Ennismore Mews, Knightsbridge, is going through a lengthy planning process to be turned into a home.

It is because of the complexity of the planning process, and the risk of being turned down, that agents and developers suggest pub conversions be left to the professionals.

David Smart, associate director at specialist business agency Christie & Co, says the process can take between one and two years because councils are reluctant to grant change of use; and if you fail you could be left with an unwanted pub on your hands.

'Technically, there's nothing to stop you from closing the doors and just living upstairs, but to change the ground floor from a pub you have to apply to the local authority, and lots of local people will object to this,' says Smart.