A decision on 18 affordable flats on the site of St Nicholas Church, Buxton Road will be made this week.

The use of the site has split local opinion with some arguing that the flats would be out of place and others welcoming new affordable homes.

Planning officers at Dorset Council have prepared recommendations for both scenarios when the area planning committee meets online this Thursday.

More than 30 residents and the town’s Civic Society have written to object to the proposals. Weymouth Town Council is not objecting after a vote which saw almost half of the planning committee abstain.

Said Weymouth Civic Society: “We consider that the proposed development would result in excessive density and coverage of this limited site.

“The design would in our view be harmful to the character and appearance of the local setting in this part of the Connaught Road Conservation Area, and out of keeping with the architecture of the fine Victorian villas which characterise the area.”

Cllr Jon Orrell told a town planning committee meeting earlier in the year: “It is in a conservation area and one wonders what the point of a conservation area is if you have a big block like that plonked in the middle of it because it doesn’t really fit with any of the surrounding buildings... It’s probably an over-development.”

Other concerns about the site include highway safety with a bus stop and pelican crossing nearby, and concerns about parking.

The planning application asks for the demolition of the church building, replacing it with ‘affordable’ two-bed flats in a four-storey block. It has been submitted to Dorset Council by Bournemouth-based Hector Benjamin Ltd.

The application would increase the number of parking spaces on the site from 12 to 18, if approved.

St Nicholas was opened in 1964 and is part of the Church of England parish of Holy Trinity.

At the time it was closed Canon Andrew Gough of Holy Trinity with St Nicholas Parochial Church Council said that the church was quite cold and some of its facilities were often not used by the congregation, that the building was decaying and the church could not afford to keep it running. The congregation moved out in March last year.