The AI commercial finance “analyst”.

This paper assesses a £182,000 facility (65% LTV) for Ashworth Regeneration Ltd to purchase a vacant former bank branch on Standishgate, Wigan town centre, for £280,000, with a business plan to let the 2,400 sq ft ground floor to a food-and-beverage operator (ERV circa £30,000) and convert the two upper floors to three flats. There is no passing income: no rent, no DSCR, and every pound of interim debt service must come from outside the deal until the plan delivers.

The strengths are the building and the price. Former banks are robust, prominent, character buildings that suit F&B conversion; Standishgate remains Wigan's primary circuit; the £117/ft² purchase price sits below residential-conversion parity for the uppers alone; and the sponsor, Ms. Karen Ashworth, has completed one prior commercial-to-residential conversion (a Leigh shop to two flats, sold at a documented £41,000 profit).

The primary risks are total at the point of writing: no planning consent exists (a pre-application response is encouraging but non-binding); no letting is contracted (one agent's letter reports F&B interest at the ERV, without named heads of terms); interim servicing was asserted from Ms. Ashworth's £58,000 salary and £9,600 of existing rental income but not evidenced with statements at submission; and the twin exits — investment refinance after letting, or sale of converted flats — both sit 12–24 months and several consents away. A term loan is unwritable; the only honest structure is a 12–18 month bridge with interest fully reserved.

Following rebuttals, the pre-application response was partially accepted (it supports the direction, not the consent); the agent's interest letter was partially accepted (market colour, not a letting); the interim-servicing claim was rejected outright for want of payslips, SA302s and bank statements; and the experience claim was partially accepted as one completed scheme rather than the asserted track record. The D stands — and would move to C- on a signed agreement for lease or planning consent. We recommend funding only as a bridge: 12–18 months, interest retained for the full term, planning submission within 90 days as a covenant, and a full personal guarantee supported by the disclosed £95,000 of equity in Ms. Ashworth's existing flats.

The security is a freehold former bank branch of circa 4,100 sq ft over three storeys on Standishgate, Wigan — a prominent corner building of 1920s construction with stone elevations, a double-height banking hall of 2,400 sq ft, and two upper floors of 1,700 sq ft combined, vacant since the branch closed in 2024. Condition is weathertight but dated: the vendor's survey notes roof repairs (~£12,000), full services renewal for any conversion, and the strong-room's demolition cost as the usual former-bank quirk. There is no lease, no income and a live empty-rates liability of circa £6,800 per annum after the initial relief expires.

Planning is the gating item. The ground-floor F&B use requires change of use; the upper-floor flats likely proceed under permitted development with prior approval, subject to light and space standards the pre-application response flags as achievable. The local authority's pre-app response (provided) is supportive in tone on both elements — and binding on neither. Until consent exists, the building's underwritable value is what a buyer would pay for a vacant, characterful problem: the £280,000 purchase price is that number, evidenced by the two other former-branch sales on the street at £62–71/ft² shell value.

There is no debt-service cover because there is no income — the analysis is therefore a funding-adequacy test, not a DSCR calculation. On the recommended bridge structure (£182,000 at circa 10.5% with interest retained), the full 18-month interest cost of circa £28,700 is deducted from the facility at drawdown, leaving net day-one proceeds of circa £153,300 — meaning the sponsor requires no servicing capacity at all during the term, which is the correct response to servicing capacity that was asserted but not evidenced.

The plan's funding stack beyond the purchase: roof and holding works £15,000, planning and professional fees £9,000, empty rates and insurance across the term £11,500, and the flat-conversion budget of £96,000 (sponsor's estimate, benchmarked at £56/ft² against her prior scheme's £51/ft² — plausible but uncontracted). Total sponsor cash requirement over 18 months: circa £130,000 against evidenced liquidity of £34,000 plus £95,000 of equity in two existing flats that would need refinancing to release. The plan is fundable in sequence — ground-floor letting first, conversion second — but not simultaneously from current resources, and the paper says so.

The borrower is Ashworth Regeneration Ltd (Co. No. 12876650), incorporated 2020, owned by Ms. Karen Ashworth (47), a full-time NHS operations manager (£58,000 salary) and part-time property investor. Completed track record: one commercial-to-residential conversion in Leigh (shop to two flats, 2022–23), evidenced by building-control certificates, the sale completion statement and a £41,000 documented profit. She retains two buy-to-let flats (combined value circa £190,000, debt £95,000). Personal credit is clean.

There is no tenant covenant to analyse — that absence is the paper. What stands in its place is the sponsor's capacity to carry the project: a single prior scheme of smaller scale, genuine but modest liquidity, and outside income that was claimed but not documented at submission. The committee's view: a credible small-scale sponsor attempting a step up in complexity (planning + letting + conversion, in sequence, in a secondary town centre) with a capital base that leaves no room for the plan to wobble. That is the definition of a D: not a bad plan — an unevidenced one.

Exit A (primary): let the ground floor at the £30,000 ERV to an F&B operator, then refinance onto an investment term loan. At £30,000 rent and a 9% yield the let building supports a valuation of circa £333,000 before any credit for the uppers, against which the £182,000 bridge is 55% — a routine refinance if the letting completes. The gap between 'agent reports interest' and 'agreement for lease signed' is the entire distance between this paper's D and a C-.

Exit B: complete the three-flat conversion and sell (Wigan town-centre one/two-beds at £85,000–£100,000 each, gross £260,000–£290,000 for the uppers alone) or refinance the whole on a semi-commercial basis. Exit B requires the £96,000 conversion budget the sponsor cannot currently fund without releasing equity from her existing flats — a refinance she has not yet applied for. Exit C (downside): re-sell the building vacant, with or without consents obtained during the term; at the entry price of £117/ft² and with planning progressed, a 10–15% loss-severity scenario is realistic before costs, which the personal guarantee and disclosed outside equity must absorb. The bridge structure exists precisely so that time, not cashflow, is what the lender is exposed to.