POOLE’s Seaview Hotel could become a convenience store under plans being considered by its new owners.

The Victorian pub on Ashley Road is one of 202 establishments purchased from Marston’s pub group by real estate investment trust NewRiver Retail, back in December 2013, with a view to converting the land and buildings to alternative uses.

Co-operative Food is leasing 54 of these pubs under an agreement signed last April.

No firm proposals have yet been put forward for the Seaview site – but NewRiver Retail has confirmed it is one of those under consideration.

Co-operative food has already said the majority of the convenience stores will be new-build projects constructed on surplus land adjacent to the existing public houses. A smaller number of public houses will be either converted to convenience store use or redeveloped as standalone convenience stores.

Cllr Brian Clements said: “A Victorian amenity, which has served the Upper Parkstone community well as a hotel and function venue in the past, it remains ‘the local pub’ for many people in the area.

“If it does change to a convenience store there will be serious concerns about the added traffic movements that will be generated on a very busy junction.”

Currently developers don’t need to apply for planning permission to change a pub into a shop, as a change to another retail use is allowed under permitted development rights. Since 2005, nine public houses in Poole have changed use, including the Sandacre pub at Sandbanks which controversially became a Tesco supermarket in July 2013.

Cllr Philip Eades, who has led a campaign for the council to introduce an Article 4 direction forcing developers to get planning permission before closing community pubs, said: “I am very disappointed to hear that the Seaview Hotel may be lost as a community pub.”

A spokesman for NewRiver Retail said: “We wanted to ensure that the licensee of The Seaview was given as much notice as possible about the future of the pub long before we submitted any planning application.

“We will also be notifying the local community in due course about our intended plans for a new convenience store to be operated by the Co-operative Food and these will be subject to the normal planning decision-making process where local people can express their views.”