A POPULAR holiday park has been given the green light to carry out works to extend and improve its offering to guests.

Black Beck Caravan Park near Bouth is set to upgrade its guest welfare building to create a new cafe, meeting area, games room, and 'balcony experience' after the Lake District National Park Authority approved its application.

A separate application was also simultaneously approved to convert a workshop building into two holiday lets, of two and three bedrooms respectively, both with outdoor hot tubs.

The existing guest welfare building comprises a stone barn containing a shop and guest toilets with storage on the ground floor, and the entire first floor given up to storage.

The conversion would see the shop transformed into a 'meeting hub' and cafe with the upstairs offering seating areas for guests and access to a newly-constructed wooden balcony with further seating – the footprint of the building otherwise remaining the same.

READ MORE: Government looks at curbing properties turned into holiday lets

The Delegated Report by the LDNPA planning officer explaining the decision says:

"I am satisfied that the development would not have an unacceptable impact on amenity due to visual intrusion, overlooking, overshadowing, overbearing effect, noise, light pollution, or other adverse impacts.

"A high standard of amenity for existing and future users of the property and neighbours would be maintained."

The separate holiday-let conversion relates to an 'L-shaped' stone workshop building a short distance to the north of the guest welfare building.

One unit would contain three bedrooms with a smaller unit containing two, both with open-plan kitchens, lounge, dining areas, bathrooms, and outdoor areas with hot tubs.

The Delegated Report for this decision says: "The proposed conversion of the stone workshop building would not require major alteration or extension to accommodate the two dwellings to be used as holiday letting accommodation, and therefore its character would be retained.

"The two holiday lets would be used to sustain the existing business of Black Beck Caravan Park and would be contained well within the confines of the caravan park.

"As such, the proposed conversion would be acceptable in principle.

"The policy support for the proposal outweighs in my mind the preference for conversion to provide local housing, particularly as the building lies squarely in the heart of an existing caravan site."