PLANS to build leisure facilities, shops, a hotel and 114 flats on the old Winter Gardens site have been granted outline planning permission by Bournemouth council.

After a three-hour debate on Monday afternoon, members of the planning board voted by nine to one in favour of the revised scheme, which will also see Exeter Road redeveloped as a £1.4 million ‘shared space’ connected with the gardens and town centre.

The developer, Inland Homes Ltd, had responded to criticism that saw a similar application for the site thrown out last year.

Changes in the present proposal – reducing the height by two storeys, reducing the floor space and making it clearer what leisure facilities might be provided – met with approval from councillors.

Ward cllr Barry Goldbart told the board the site had been a “wasted opportunity” for many years.

“I see jobs, homes, businesses and what I hope will be a high quality leisure facility,” he said.

Cllr Malcolm Davies said: “We don’t want to see it in the next century, we want to see an iconic building there as quickly as possible.”

Board chairman cllr David Kelsey said: “My reception to previous applications has not been favourable, but in this application the developers have gone a long way to pointing us in the right direction.”

Representatives from the developer said outline permission was needed before potential tenants would commit to the site, and thus it would be impossible to say for sure which facilities would be provided, however an ice rink and quasar complex were suggested in the plans.

Several councillors, particularly Roger West who voted against approval, expressed concern that increased traffic in the adjacent Cranborne Road might prove dangerous to pedestrians.

Cranborne Road resident Peter Adams spoke at the meeting.

He said: “Proposals like this are frankly 10-a-penny up and down the country, there is nothing unique.”

He added that he was “bitterly disappointed” to see it approved.

John Soane, of Bournemouth Civic Society, also spoke against it, saying a proposal that fitted the “original sylvan character” of the area would have been more appropriate.