A PLAN to convert a West Dorset nursing home into a hotel has been refused by Dorset Council.

It says the application failed to justify the loss of the care home and would result in inadequate parking on the site.

The application had come from the Lyme Regis Nursing Home in Pound Road and had met with a mixed response from neighbours.

Some welcome the change of use as a way of protecting the building while others said the change to a hotel would be a nuisance to neighbours with extra noise and traffic.

Lyme Regis Town Council told Dorset Council planners they would like more information about the proposed hotel use but had not objected.

Documents with the application suggest a 30-bed hotel use with 18 off-road parking spaces, compared to the existing 12, but either number is considered inadequate for hotel use.

Part of the site includes the former Lyme Regis Cottage Hospital, considered to be an undesignated heritage asset and adjacent to the town Conservation Area.

Among the public comments was that if the change of use was to take place murals in the building by Wyndham Payne, created in the 1930s, should be protected.

The planning application said there would be no external physical changes to the building.

Dorset Council planning officers said the application did not provide enough evidence about why a change of use would be beneficial to the town: “The supporting planning statement, alludes briefly to the care home no longer meeting modern care needs with reference to physical arrangements of the building and it is clamed that the business is ‘becoming unviable’. However no detailed evidence is provided to support that assertion,” said a Dorset Council case officer report.