Daresbury Hall could be part-demolished to make way for a scheme to install 31 homes and an ‘art house’.

A request for a renewal of planning permissions for the site is due to be decided at Runcorn Town Hall on Monday, January 11.

The plans include the part-demolition, restoration and conversion of the former stately home and the construction of nine extra houses.

The manager’s home will also be renovated and expanded in the form of a garage.

Nine flats are among the proposed properties.

The site is classed as Green Belt under Halton’s 2005 Unitary Development Plan.

Planning officers have recommended the project for approval.

Their report for Halton’s development control committee said a nesting box for barn owls, which are a protected species, will need to be built for the birds, which are likely to be displaced by the works.

The name of the project applicant has not been published.

The scheme’s agent is Mason Gillibrand Architects.

In April police discovered a cannabis farm with about 600 plants estimated to be worth £750,000 at the hall and a report published ahead of January 11’s meeting said the structure has been included on the ‘English Heritage register of buildings at risk’ in the most severe category for years.

In their recommendation to Halton’s planning committee, the author of the report said: “The independent assessment of the application has concluded that the scheme is the minimum required to fund the conservation deficit and deliver a viable scheme to preserve the hall.

“Historic England has confirmed that the scheme can be justified as an exceptional circumstance in the pursuit of preserving a Grade Two listed building.

“As such, the benefit of securing the restoration of a listed building constitutes a very special circumstance that would justify limited new housing development in the Green Belt.”