March 9, 2023 7.00 am This story is over 27 months old

Former RAF command centre to become luxury holiday home

Conversion will point to military roots
Plans for a new holiday home have been given permission. | Image: CAN

An abandoned World War Two flight operations block in Lincolnshire has been given permission to become a £375,000 luxury holiday home.

The building is one of the few remaining on the former RAF Spilsby, a bomber command airfield on Monksthorpe Lane in Great Steeping.

East Lindsey District Council has approved architects firm CAN to change the use of the building.

The new 5 bedroom holiday rental unit will begin construction in summer.

The developers said the designs would “riff” off the surrounding industrial farming landscape and military buildings.

 

The build will feature several nods to its RAF past. | Image: CAN

It includes simple timber framed ‘plug-ins’ that will be constructed in a nearby WW2 air hangar and transported to site on the client’s combine harvester.

References in the build will include a replica windsock complete with shrapnel hole and a roof-light over the main space in the shape of a Lancaster Bomber.

The phrase ‘Take it Easy’ will be written on timber panelling on the entrance door. It was originally painted on the nose-cone of the client’s grandfather’s aeroplane.

“Take it Easy” once adorned the applicant’s grandfather’s nosecone. | Image: CAN

“The Operations Block was the nerve centre of the airfield, with rooms for cypher, weather reporting and the large operations room where men and women who worked on the ground directed the station’s pilots into combat,” said the developers.

Designed specifically with defence in mind, the solid brick building has no windows with entrances protected by traverse walls and a concrete roof.

However, the conversion will open the house up to the outside world.

How the building looks at the moment. | Image: CAN

In a report recommending approval, officers said the build was acceptable in principle.

“The overall design offers several references to its RAF past and just about hangs onto its simplistic design whilst realising its domestic re-use,” they said.

“The structural capabilities of the building have demonstrated the sustainable re-use of a building in open countryside.”

MyLocal Lincolnshire is the new home of The Lincolnite. Download the app now