MORE than 100 Elmsett residents have signed a petition supporting an application lift restrictions on a small, historic village reading room being used as a home.

MORE than 100 Elmsett residents have signed a petition supporting an application lift restrictions on a small, historic village reading room being used as a home.

The reading room, in Offton Road on the edge of the village, was rescued from underneath brambles by Lesley Woor and John Simmons and turned into a holiday cottage.

Ms Woor, who runs a hairdressers in the village and has lived there for about 25 years, said the meeting room had been built in about 1936 by methodists hoping to keep the men from the pub.

For a time it served as the village hall until Elmsett got a purpose-built hall in the 1970s, when the reading room was used for storage and then let to a piano maker.

After he left it became derelict until Ms Woor and her partner bought it and refurbished it into a two-bedroomed holiday home.

Ms Woor said current restrictions on letting it for no more than four weeks in any eight week period had meant she had had to refuse when asked by people moving house if they could rent it for about three months.

She said she had no intention of selling it, and could even consider living there when she retired.

Her application is to be discussed at a meeting of Babergh District Council's development committee on Wednesday, July 2, and councillors are being advised to grant planning permission.