04:26PM, Monday 10 November 2025
The Chequers, Cookham. Photo: Google
The building has been vacant for six years.
The previous owners wanted to extend the building and create a cookery school on-site. The plans were approved but the project didn’t come to fruition.
Two residents from Cookham were looking to bring the Grade II-listed building back into use as a self-build family home but their proposal was rejected by the council.
As part of the application documents submitted to the council, the couple said the former pub has been ‘slowly deteriorating’ and was now ‘a sad shadow of its former self’.
In a design and access statement also submitted as part of the application, DP Architects showed the condition of The Chequers in 2018 with the ‘cramped bar area’ and a ‘substandard and cramped kitchen.’
A single-storey rear extension would have been added to the public house, and two bedrooms would have been renovated on the first floor.
The existing conservatory on site would have also been removed with the addition of a porch.
The existing hard surfacing previously used as a car park would have been removed, which could have ‘significantly reduced the risk of surface water runoff’ on the site.
Two council officers also offered the applicants pre-application advice on whether or not the change of use of the site into a home would be suitable.
One planning officer said: “Considering the primary phase of the building was intended as a dwelling, I consider the character and significance of the building could readily accommodate the proposed change of use.”
The building falls within Cookham’s greenbelt but the design and access statement said the proposal has ‘no impact on its openness’ and would be an appropriate development.
But the council disagreed and said the proposal is inappropriate and harmful to the greenbelt.
There was also no legal agreement submitted as part of the application to show the home would be a ‘true self-build dwelling’ or how the applicants would contribute to offset the carbon generated from the development.
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