WORK to extend Undershaw, the home of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which was bought for Stepping Stones special school will now plough ahead with an opening date for the school planned for June, following a High Court battle.

A judge dismissed a judicial review application just before Christmas challenging Waverley Borough Council’s decision to grant planning permission for Undershaw, the author’s former Hindhead home.

WBC granted planning permission and listed building consent for the change of use from an hotel to a school, in March 2015.

Undershaw Preservation Trust founder John Gibson sought to overturn the planning permission in the High Court after plans for a modern extension emerged.

Work on the site continued while the case was waiting to be heard.

DFN Charitable Foundation chief executive Norman Stromsoy said: “We were fully confident we had the support of our community and the legal right to do so.”

Undershaw would still be “languishing and rotting away” had councillors not agreed to the change of use and development on the site, he said. Some features have had to be adapted to provide disabled access, but the vast majority had been saved and was being restored “so it could be easily understood’ as Conan Doyle’s home.

The next stage will be landscaping plans to be submitted to the borough council which will ensure the “wonderful views to the Surrey Hills that captivated Conan Doyle and his family can once more be enjoyed by everyone visiting Undershaw”, Mr Stromsoy added.

“We feel Conan Doyle would be pleased to know his home is to be preserved and given such a valuable role as a permanent living testament to his care for his disabled wife and the many disabled children who will enjoy and use these remarkable buildings for many years to come.”

Mr Stromsoy said defending the case had resulted in a “significant cost” to council tax payers and “our small charity which we are unable to recoup.”

David Forbes-Nixon, whose foundation bought Undershaw on behalf of Stepping Stones in 2014, told The Herald: “We are thrilled sense has prevailed and now we can get on with restoring the whole house and building the extension so we can open for the children in June.

“A lot of work has gone into this by the DFS organisation and I would like to thank everybody that supported us through the process of appeal.

“I would like to thank all the people of Haslemere and Hindhead, the councillors from Waverley and everyone else who has supported us in our bid to restore Undershaw to its former glory and convert it into a world-class special needs school but also open it to the public out of school hours for everyone to enjoy.”

Mr Justice Foskett’s ruling given on December 23, rejected arguments that the council had “failed adequately to consider other viable uses”.

There was a history of consideration of other uses, “none of which had ever been achieved or realised in practice”.

In his view the planning committee was “amply justified in proceeding on the basis that single residential use was not a viable option however optimum it might be in theory”.

The judge added he did not consider the committee’s decision was “undermined” by what he took to be the claimant’s contention that it failed to have regard to a “viable educational use” that was less harmful to the heritage asset than the proposal in the applications before it.

“I am unable to see that the committee’s approach was in any way invalidated by a failure to identify single residential use as a viable option for preserving the heritage asset,” he added.

Waverley council leader Robert Knowles told The Herald: “I am extremely pleased to hear the judge strongly dismissed the judicial review application.

“This decision endorses Waverley’s planning processes and legitimises the decision to grant planning permission, for what is sure to be a fantastic community facility, once and for all.

“I look forward to hearing how the new Stepping Stones School will help the children and young adults who attend it to flourish; now its future has been secured.”

In 2012, Mr Gibson won a High Court challenge against the planning authority over its 2010 decision to allow the then owner to divide the house into eight separate homes.

In that same year, Waverley had granted separate planning permission for a potential buyer to reuse the building as a single dwelling.

Mr Gibson brought the cases to the High Court at his own expense, but Waverley’s defence costs were around £70,000, in 2012.

Mr Gibson told The Herald in August when he lodged his appeal at the London court: “I feel honoured to be able to continue to defend Undershaw as an important part of Britain’s literary heritage.

“I do not dispute the expansion of Stepping Stones School is a worthy cause. What I, and others, question is the appropriateness of this happening at Undershaw, at least on the scale currently proposed.”

In July 2015, High Court judge Mr Justice Dove rejected an application for a judicial review, made by Mr Gibson on behalf of the UPT.?

But Mr Gibson requested the papers were reconsidered at a hearing. Permission to apply for judicial review was subsequently granted by Mr Justice Singh after a hearing in August.