CIVIC leaders have been accused of "killing" Bournemouth's tourism trade by allowing so many of the town's hotels to close.

During a heated Planning Board debate on proposals to convert the Fiveways Hotel in Boscombe into flats, Councillor Mike Everingham said: "The rot has truly set in and we have to face up to it.

"We have killed the tourism trade off whether we like it or not."

Cllr Everingham said he had "every sympathy" with the owner of the Fiveways Hotel in Argyll Road. Almost every hotel along there has got vacancies - that tells you everything.

"There are very few hotels left."

But councillor Philip Stanley-Watts disagreed, saying: "Hotels like the Fiveways are crucial to Boscombe which can't afford to lose family establishments."

Former hotelier John Beesley said Planning Board members needed more financial information about the Fiveways while Cllr Roger West reflected: "This area is not the area I knew ten or even five years ago.

"Hotels everywhere have, unfortunately, gone. I always feel sorry for the hotelier who is left at the end when our planning policy is in such a state.

"When we have let hotels down on the seafront go I find it very difficult to say to these owners: 'No, you can't convert.'"

But the borough's head of tourism Mark Smith concluded that the loss of the Fiveways was unaccept-

able because "the property is sustainable as tourism accommodation".

The application was rejected after ten members voted in favour of their officers' recommendation to refuse planning permission and four voted against.