A FORMER special school could be sold off to a hotel chain.

Penwithen School near Dorchester closed its doors for the last time in July 2005.

The main school building has stood empty ever since although part of the site is still used by the Dorchester Learning Centre.

Now Dorset County Council officers are investigating the possibility of selling off the remainder.

A spokesman for Dorset County Council said: "Part of the site remains in use by the Dorchester Learning Centre. The long-term aim is to dispose of the site.

"However, it takes around two years to go through the process of consultation and consents. This process is ongoing and may include testing the market for a prospective purchaser.

"In the meantime, we are investigating opportunities to increase use of the school building for county council purposes, on a temporary basis."

Clive Tee, the corporate property officer for Dorset County Council, added that many options for the future of the buildings were being explored including the possibility of gaining planning permission for future development and the possibility of selling the site to a hotel chain.

"With the 2012 London Olympics and the sailing in South Dorset it's possible that a leisure company could be interested in the site for a hotel.

"And although it's all speculation at the moment and no one has approached us it is something that we are investigating as a potential use for the site. We are also investigating what sort of planning consent we could gain for the site before it is sold. The difficulty we have is the road access.

"If we wanted to do anything that would generate more than the traffic generated by the school we would have to do a lot of work to the junction and are currently talking with highways about what may be necessary."

Education chiefs at Dorset County Council unveiled plans to shut the school as part of a scheme to integrate children with special educational needs into mainstream education.

The final decision to close the school was approved by an independent adjudicator who said the school was not educationally or financially viable.' The school, which also had a hostel, worked with boys with behavioural and emotional problems and had room for up to 50 pupils but when the closure was announced had just 14.