Go-ahead for new house on Middle Drove at Marshland St James

West Norfolk Council has agreed plans to demolish the existing property on Middle Drove at Marshland St James, near Wisbech, and replace it with a four-bed house.

A planning statement said: "This site currently has an existing dwelling located on it, the property was last inhabited early 2022. It has not received modernisation, and is now barely fit for habitation.

A picture of the station taken in the 1960s which is included in a planning statement on the council's planning portal (Image: BCKLWN)

"A replacement dwelling is both more cost-effective and aesthetically preferential to a renovation of the existing dwelling."

It added the proposals would "greatly improve the existing streetscape" because of the current property's "untidy appearance".

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The now-demolished signal box at Middle Drove (Image: BCKLWN)

Marshland Parish Council supported the application. A planning officer's report said the building was part of the railway heritage of the site and could have been a house for the station master or a goods shed.

It added: "The proposed replacement dwelling reflects the railway heritage of the site.

"It reflects the design of other station master housing along the Great Eastern line."

The station and its level crossing in the 1960s (Image: BCKLWN)

A design and access statement said Middle Drove Station was opened in 1848 and was one of five on the Wisbech to Magdalen Road section of the Lynn and Wisbech Railway.

It served the village of Tilney Fen End and previously consisted of the station master’s house, ticket office, two platforms with simple waiting rooms, a signal box and a goods shed. 

The line, which mainly carried farm produce, closed in 1968 by which time fruit and vegetables grown in the Fens were mainly carried by road. 

The statement concludes: "The proposed replacement dwelling has been carefully designed to be both sensitive to its setting and to also reflect the historic nature of this former railway site whilst providing a home that is fit for the living standards of a local family."