COUNCILLORS have turned down a planning application - from their own authority.

Weymouth and Portland Borough Council had applied to alter the Portland Town Council offices building at Fortuneswell, intending that the town council would be relocated to the lower ground floor.

Six flats would then have been created on the ground floor, the first floor and a new second floor. Parking for the flats would have been provided in the Hambro car park.

But the Weymouth and Portland planning and traffic committee went against their own officers' recommendation to approve the scheme and turned it down on the grounds of over-development.

Members heard an impassioned speech by Tophill West councillor Les Ames, in which he said he was very much disillusioned'.

He said he was bitterly disappointed' at the development and added that the Portland Town Council chamber was something to be proud of because of its great history.

Island colleague Coun Margaret Leicester said: "I have no objection to the building being put to better use, but this is not the ideal place for families to come to live.

"It is five flights of stairs to the top floor and I think it is the most impractical building I have come across in my life.

"It is nowhere I would want families to come and live. It is on a hairpin bend on a blind corner. No way."

Coun Mark Tewkesbury said he could not support the scheme because of its parking problems.

Coun Peter Farrell decisively swung the debate when he asked what the density of homes on the site was.

When the figure was finally worked out to more than 200 per hectare he said: "This looks like the borough council taking a chance to pack flats into a small space and I cannot support this scheme. It is outrageous."

Coun David Mannings said he felt any flats should only be one or two and not three-bedroom, but colleagues said earlier items on the meeting's agenda had prompted concern despite having far lower densities.

They then refused the scheme on a 6-4 vote.