RESIDENTS of a Victorian former hotel have seen their home protected from demolition.

Councillors were split on whether Bournemouth’s Belgravia Hotel could be knocked down, but there was a consensus that Pierfront Developments’ replacement four storey block of 32 flats would be too large for the site, and the scheme has been rejected.

The Belgravia, at 56 Christchurch Road, currently houses 24 bedsits.

A Mr Henry, said to represent “the residents of the property”, addressed the planning board meeting on Monday to call for its retention.

“The people living there now, if you destroy this building their only option will be to go on the street or to a homeless shelter. They are in a poverty trap,” he said. “There are a lot of disabled people. A lot of mental health people. This provides a service for those people.”

Representing the developer, planning consultant Robin Henderson said the scheme had been supported by Dorset Police as “the site currently has a poor reputation for criminality”.

Ward councillors Anne and Michael Filer backed the scheme. Cllr Michael Filer said blocks of flats in the area housed many more people than the Victorian villas they replaced.

“If this hadn’t happened Bournemouth would be one of those fading, worn out seaside towns we see all over the country,” he said.

However committee chairman and fellow ward councillor David Kelsey said concerns over crimes linked to the building should not affect the board’s decision.

“We can’t just pull a building down because we don’t like the people living in it, we all have a right to live somewhere,” he said.

“I am fed up of developers just pulling buildings down for the sake of pulling them down.”

The building, despite some later alterations including an imitation mansard roof added in the 1930s, was said by planning officer Tom Hubbard to have retained “a wealth of original features”. It is thought to have once belonged to tea tycoon Sir Thomas Lipton.

He said the loss of the building would cause “substantial harm” to the East Cliff Conservation Area, and the replacement block - with 16 one-bed and 16 two-bed flats - was too large.

Cllr Lynda Price questioned the need for more one-bed flats. “I believe that from 2012-16 60 per cent of our developments in Bournemouth have been one-bed flats,” she said.

“That’s not family accommodation. I don’t think we need any more.”

The plan was rejected unanimously.