A DISUSED pub is to be converted into a care home.

Councillors granted planning permission for the Jolly Sailor Inn in Castletown, Portland, to become a 16-bedroom care home for adults with mental health problems.

Councillors gave the plans delegated approval subject to a reduction in size of a proposed balcony to ensure it is brought back level with the building.

Concerns had been raised by residents about the amount of noise that might come from the balcony, the committee heard.

Councillor Kevin Hodder, a member of Weymouth and Portland Borough Council’s planning committee, said: “To me the balcony is the only thing that’s wrong with it.

“We can’t sit here as a planning committee and say no one’s going to use the balcony after 11pm at night as we don’t know that.

“Everything else is fine and everything that’s been put forward is fine.”

The building will be three storeys high in the middle and will also have single and two-storey elements. A report to the committee said that the pub has been shut for five years.

It said alterations will be made to make the care home wheelchair accessible and the home will provide 24/7 staffed care.

Alterations will be made to provide communal space, kitchen, office, stairway and bathrooms at ground floor level.

The first and second floor bed and breakfast rooms and manager’s accommodation associated with the public house would be altered to provide ten bedrooms.

It also includes a rear bedroom extension and is supported by planning officers who say that the suitability of the building and its location is not a planning matter.

Former Portland mayor Kris Haskins is among those who objected to the scheme.

He suggests Castletown is a ‘totally unsuitable’ area for such a facility given there are four other pubs and hotels nearby.

Mr Haskins adds in a letter: “The Jolly Sailor is also one of the oldest buildings in Castletown and is of historical importance.”

A resident’s letter was read out to councillors in the meeting in support of the conversion.

It said: “The Jolly Sailor has become an eyesore and needs to become something other than a pub.

“I think it would make a splendid care facility.”

Councillor Ray Banham told the meeting: “I’m quite happy with what I saw on site.

“The only thing that did come up was the balcony situation.

“In general I can’t see anything wrong with this development at all.”