Thought long and hard about it to be honest. It wasn't deep enough to put an appliance in it, so it would have stuck out a fair bit and we would have to have a bodge of cupboards around it. I would have had to raise the lintel too. Other option was to remove completely but that would have been very costly due to previous changes above the fireplace and even if we had done that we would have only gained 40cm of worktop either side of the kitchen as you see it in the photos.
Had the discussion with my builder and sparky and family and friends and no-one could come up with a solution that worked any better which wasn't very expensive.
We are only having wall cupboards in the wall facing the window, going to keep it nice and open along the window wall.