The 200-year-old sandstone villa on Kinross High Street stood within the town’s conservation area.

Kirklands Development Group bulldozed the former manse without planning permission in June, leading Perth & Kinross Council to suspend the project before halting it indefinitely.

The developers had originally been given planning permission in 2018 for the part-demolition of the site, and the erection of two houses and four flats.

However, due to the full demolition, developers were forced to reapply for permission for the complete demolition of buildings, erection of two houses and four flats and to rebuild the manse facade.

Now the new application has found favour with the local authority.

Kinross-shire Civic Trust has claimed the approval will “encourage others to act in a similarly reprehensible manner in future”.

The Trust wrote: “Not only was the demolition unauthorised, but it was also carried out in a reckless, indiscriminate manner with a digger, thus damaging the ashlar blocks. If the down taking of the walls were truly necessary, a responsible developer who intended to restore the facades to their original form would have taken the walls down by hand, numbering the blocks.”