Plans to renovate the Old Fire Station in Penryn Town Centre for two new flats have raised no objections from the town's planning committee.

The owner, Mr R Bull, has applied for listed building consent for his proposal to create a one-bedroom flat and a studio apartment in the currently derelict building at Fish Cross, on the junction of St Thomas Street and Broad Street.

The plans include external refurbishment and the repair or replacement of existing windows and doors, as well as replacing broken roofing slates and the addition of new windows along with the re-opening of a former window at the rear of the property.

At a meeting of the town's planning committee, Councillor Mark Snowdon expressed his concern at plans for the roof, saying the existing asbestos slate should be replaced with all natural slate.

He said: "It's a historic building and if they are going to put a new roof covering on it they should use natural slate."

He also said the details around the former front entrance - now a window - were "so out of keeping," and added "they have gutted it, absolutely gutted it."

Councillor Rich Mitchell said the building had been "disgusting" before, and suggested the council raise no objections as "it definitely needs refurbishing at the moment."

Councillor John Langan said he thought it was "an awful lot of work for two student rooms."

The council voted to raise no objections, subject to planning officers' advice, which Mr Snowdon said would "protect anything that needs protecting."

According to a history of the grade II listed building, provided by the developer in a design and access statement, the site had formerly been owned by Penryn MP and Pendennis Castle governor Sir Nicholas Slanning, who died for the royalist cause during the English Civil War.

By the 19th century it was a private home, and in 1899 the land was bought and a new fire station was built on the land to replace one at the bottom of Quay Hill - although reportedly the firemen still had to catch the horses from the engine from a field near St Gluvias Church.

In the 1940s the building was superseded by a new fire station on Commercial Road and in the decades that followed it was used as a shop, veterinary practice, cafe, and finally flats, before lying empty from the mid 2000s.

The application can be viewed on Cornwall Council's website using reference PA17/00827.