Shop from TV's Sex Education faces demolition

A shop which starred in Netflix hit Sex Education is to be knocked down to make way for housing.

In the show characters Adam Groff, played by Barbie actor Connor Swindells, and Ola Nyman, played by Patricia Allison, worked at the store.

Now Browns General Stores, in Llandogo, Monmouthshire, will be replaced by a new shop with a manager’s flat above.

An existing house used as a bed and breakfast will be turned into a four-bedroom detached house.

Four new homes will be built, with two pairs of semi-detached two-bedroom homes built on the site beside the A466 Wye Valley link road.

The shop shut in November 2021 having been run by one family for more than 90 years.

When the plans were approved by Monmouthshire council on Tuesday, councillor Ann Webb said residents missed the shop.

"It’s a much-needed facility,” she said.

The application was first made in 2022 and Ms Webb said the authority did not want the site lying empty any more.

Planning officer Amy Longford said the council usually required 35% of homes to be affordable but that its independent consultants accepted that would make the development unviable.

Instead the council accepted a contribution "just shy" of £20,000 towards affordable housing elsewhere in the county.

The application was considered by committee as there were more than five objections.

Wye Valley community council's Lynne Parker said it supported the application as it met the local authority’s policies.

She said: "The village needs a shop."

Monmouthshire councillor Emma Bryn said it was a "rite of passage" for children to go to the local shop to pick up eggs and flour."

The committee approved the application with the condition the replacement shop is built before the four new homes at the front of the site are occupied.