FALMOUTH is to lose yet another guesthouse as the struggles of running a B&B in the age of Air B&B and Covid were laid bare in a planning application.

Donna Sears and Gillian Jansen who run the Ivanhoe Guesthouse, in Melvill Road say they have been forced to apply for a change of use from commercial to private because selling a commercial property is proving too difficult.

Last week Cornwall Council gave permission for change of use application for the house to be converted from Class C1, guesthouse, to Class C3, residential.

The two women have lived at Ivanhoe Guesthouse since 2000 and have been running it as a B&B for the past 20 years.

They have five letting rooms which comprise of a single room with a private bathroom, and four double/twin en-suite rooms. But in a supporting letter for their application they said because of Covid-19 and the increasing financial pressure of running a small, registered B&B, they have to sell the property.

"Over the past 20 years we have seen huge changes in the B&B sector in Falmouth, for instance guests are staying for shorter periods of time, many only for one or two nights, as opposed to people booking rooms for a week at a time as they did many years ago.

"Visitors who do come for longer than a couple of days are tending to stay in self-catering type properties, and this has been particularly noticeable over the last year as a result of Covid-19 fears.

"This, compounded with the added competition of Air B&B and other similar agencies who have a distinct financial advantage, means that it is becoming much more difficult to maintain a profitable B&B business in a small, registered guesthouse."

They say there are currently over 300 Air B&B properties in and around Falmouth. People letting rooms from their houses in this way do not have the overheads that a registered B&B has such as business insurance, fire safety, environmental health, website costs and PPL/PRS license.

"We have noticed in the last few years we are really struggling to achieve the occupancy level that we previously had because of this new competition," they said. "Properties with smaller overheads can afford to charge less and the popular on-line booking agencies take a large percentage when guests book in this way.

"The majority of our income comes from the Summer months, June – September, with a smaller occupancy level in May and October. Easter for the past several years has been very quiet and it’s extremely quiet during the winter months. It is very rare that we are full to capacity and our occupancy rates are much lower now than they were ten years ago."

They say they had decided to sell up but found that nobody wanted it as a commercial property, hence their application for a change of use.

They said that other guesthouses have also applied to convert back to a private residence including The Telford guesthouse, also on Melvill Road, that had recently been granted permission to convert back to a private residence.

They say in the last couple of years there has been a precedent set by Cornwall Council permitting changes from B&Bs and hotels into residential or other types of business properties.

These include:

Penpol Guesthouse, Melvill Road, which is next door; Wellington Guesthouse, Melvill Road;Telford Guesthouse, Melvill Road; The Observatory Guesthouse, Western Terrace, change of use to a dental practice.

The Madeira Hotel – now The Fitzroy, Cliff Road and The Liner apartments on Falmouth seafront that used to be The Falmouth Beach Resort Hotel.