FEARS that a Borders hotel owner will be made ‘homeless’ have failed to overturn a planning condition.

Catherine Brown, of St Ronans Hotel, in High Street, Innerleithen, has lived in a cabin close to the business for six years.

But a condition of planning permission for the cabin is that only hotel staff are allowed to reside in it.

She is now looking to retire and sell the hotel but to continue to live in the hut.

A planning application was submitted to Scottish Borders Council (SBC) for the condition to be removed.

A report with the application states: “I would like to apply to discharge the requirement for the cabin to be limited to person or persons employed by the hotel and apply for a certificate for lawful use as a dwelling house.

“I currently live in the cabin and have done so for almost six years and paying council tax. I am now 66 years old and looking to retire and sell the hotel.

“In such circumstance I would effectively become homeless. If this requirement is removed, I can then employ an architect to restructure the plans of the buildings and land belonging to the hotel to allow parking and turning space in what is now St Ronans car park with an entrance directly through the wall dividing the car park and beer garden, without having to traverse through the beer garden.

“As I now own the whole area outlined in the plan of St Ronans Hotel, I am in the position to put this into practice.

“I have lived and worked in Innerleithen for 28 years and wish to stay in the area where my family and friends are here to support me, however, with the influx of visitors to the area and the amount of houses being bought as second homes or Airbnbs, the cost of even modest houses are prohibitive, leaving me to be a burden on the local housing association.

“In keeping with the council’s planning policy to have sufficient homes in the area, I feel this is a good way to add to the count of homes without any further disruption to the grounds or any additional drain to the services already supplied.”

But in his report refusing the application, Carlos Clarke, SBC’s lead planning officer, says: “Consideration has been given as to whether condition one could be modified to allow her personal occupancy.

“However, that would not prevent her right to complain should noise in the hotel subsequently affect her enjoyment of the property and potentially cause a statutory nuisance, nor would it address the use of the cabin in the longer term since, when her occupancy of it ceases, the cabin’s future use would still need to be addressed, and the hotel operator at that time may, for whatever reason, not wish to purchase it.

“Such a condition is likely, therefore, to be unsustainable.

“The personal circumstances of the applicant are fully and sincerely acknowledged but are not overriding, given the risk of harm to the future operation of the hotel.”