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A luxury Grand Designs-style home could be pulled down after it emerged the original planning permission was only for the conversion of a chicken coop.

The £1,800-a-week designer home - called the Chickenshed - was built with spectacular views over the Wye Valley in Trellech on the Welsh border.

But angry villagers have pointed out the stunning home was meant to be based on the same structure as a chicken coop which had stood in the area for decades.

The uber-cool house with glass walls, polished concrete floors and Scandanavian-style wooden cladding was "longer, wider and higher" than the original henhouse.

Blundering council planning chiefs admitted officers had inspected it during construction but failed to stop it.

(Image: WALES NEWS SERVICE) (Image: WALES NEWS SERVICE)

Councillors admitted the building would not be demolished as the council had been kept informed "from start to finish".

Trellech community councillor John Gooding said: "Construction should have been stopped at this early stage but it was allowed it to continue.

"This building has been a planning disaster from start to finish and we think that the planning department accept that."

(Image: WALES NEWS SERVICE)

Among the reviews were Country Living saying: "Streamlined style. Polished concrete floors and underfloor heating, brilliant white woodwork and distinctive pea-green beams are offset by charcoal grey and vibrant green upholstery and the new bleached beams."

Grand Designs magazine said guests can "cook up a storm in the well-appointed Bulthaup kitchen, or chill out and treat yourself to one of owner Sue's legendary home-cooked suppers."

Conde Nast Traveller also wrote: "An unexpectedly futuristic, Scandi-inspired cabin tucked away in the Welsh countryside. Like a SoHo loft apartment crossed with a Danish ski cabin airlifted into the green, green hills of South Wales…."

Monmouthshire planning chiefs admitted there was a "lack of enforcement" which led to it being built outside of the original planning permission for the existing chicken shed.

(Image: WALES NEWS SERVICE)

(Image: WALES NEWS SERVICE)

(Image: WALES NEWS SERVICE)

Planning officer Mark Hand said: "We'll have to take that on the chin, to be blunt.

"Perhaps with the benefit of hindsight we can question the extent to which it was capable of conversion."

Architects Hall and Bednarczyk said the £275,000 makeover was sympathetic to its original use as a chickenshed.

A spokesman for the Chepstow-based architects said: "The former poultry barn was abandoned for several decades and in a rundown state.

"We demonstrated how its utilitarian agricultural identity could be retained in a convincing and contemporary architectural form.

"The roof and flanking walls employ black corrugated sheeting and timber cladding in a refined and affectionate re-working of typical agricultural materials.

"Polished concrete floors and boarded timber walls provide a sophisticated nod to the building's humble origins."