Plans to add an extra eight bedrooms to a nursing home near Aberystwyth have been foiled by listed building status rules.

Owners and operators of the Grade II listed Plas Cwmcynfelin care home near Clarach sought permission from Ceredigion County Council to build an extension to boost care home bedroom numbers by eight.

Previous applications in 2007 gave consent for the current form of the coach house which was extended on the northern side.

Documents said that the “proposal at the time was considered to be sympathetic to the character of the main building.”

The latest rejected plan wanted to “further extend the coach house by adding a two storey extension onto the front of the existing extension in order to provide four additional bedrooms on the first floor and four on the ground floor to serve the use as a residential care home,” documents said.

A planning report said: “The existing main extension to the coach house has been sympathetically designed and does not impact detrimentally on the setting of either the coach house or the main listed building.

“The proposal would impact detrimentally on the symmetry of the coach house when viewed from the house as a blank rendered gable wall would be seen, and would create a disjointed look to the building having had a second extension added to the carefully designed one that is already in place.

“Whilst the applicant states that there is a need for additional beds at the residential care home, given the listed status of the house and the fact that the coach house is curtilage listed, any option to provide this needs to ensure that there is no unacceptable detrimental impact on the listed or curtilage listed buildings, their character and appearance, or their setting.”

The plans were rejected by council planners under delegated powers.