Hi Wiskey1,
Thank you for your reply.
The lady at the CAA said as long as an IR is obtained the exams remain valid, I asked if this applied to IR's obtained outside of Europe to which she said yes.
I have no desire to return to Europe to fly but I want to eventually convert my licences to the country I'm currently residing in as I plan to be here for the foreseeable future. I've been flying here on my CPL with a Certificate of Validation. The COV can be reissued as many times as I want so rather than convert my CPL at this stage I want to wait until I have unlocked my ATPL and convert that instead of converting my CPL now and doing another conversion (ATPL) in the future.