A PUBLIC inquiry is to be held into plans to create a residential conference centre with car-parking in the grounds of Appleby Castle.

Owner Christopher Nightingale applied for planning permission to build the centre on the fringes of the walled garden and to extend the main car-park in December 1997.

Eden District Council referred the decision on to the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions John Prescott in May 1999.

Mr Prescott's decision to determine the application himself after a local public inquiry overrides the advice EDC gave him that it would be "minded to grant both planning and listed building applications, subject to appropriate conditions relating to archaeological surveillance, safeguarding of the historic structures and the general development implementation".

The reason Mr Prescott gave EDC planners was that a conflict with national policy on heritage might be raised.

There are a number of Grade I-listed buildings on the site, which is within Appleby's conservation area; the majority of the site is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and the grounds are Grade II-listed in the historic parks and gardens register.

Mr Nightingale has made subsequent planning applications for further development but EDC's director of planning services Graham Allan said these could not now be determined by EDC until Mr Prescott issued his decision on the conference centre.

At the same time Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Chris Smith is considering a number of applications for Scheduled Monument consent for the same site.

The public inquiry takes place on Tuesday January 9, 2001.