A NEW high rise building with 'live-work' offices has been granted planning permission, despite some strong words from councillors.

Watkin Jones Group claimed its already approved plans for a 12-storey office block on the vacant site next to 35 Holdenhurst Road were not economically viable.

Instead it sought to build a taller block with 147 flats and reduced office space, and 120 parking spaces.

Although they ultimately backed the scheme, councillors said they had been "manipulated" into doing so.

On Monday, the firm's planning director Iain Smith told the town's planning board that "change is required, otherwise the site will remain vacant as it has for the past 30 years or so".

Borough planning officers backed the amended scheme. Council planning policy director Mark Axford said an independent assessment of the developer's viability evidence had borne it out.

"The bottom line is it is not viable, what we have in front of us is," he said.

Officers also drew attention to the nearby 37-39 Oxford Road site where a developer had successfully appealed against the board's decision to refuse permission for a 16-storey block of student flats.

Watkin Jones was originally granted permission for three sites at once - the Holdenhurst Road office block and another two in Oxford Road and Christchurch Road, containing a mixture of teaching facilities, student flats, a hotel and offices.

However, the area's ward councillor Mike Greene said that when the original application was made "some of us were very concerned, many of us even questioned whether the office space was viable, that was poo-pooed by the developer who said there would be no problem at all".

He said: "The real question for me is had this application in its current form come to us in 2015 would it have been granted? Absolutely not!"

Board member Cllr Stephen Bartlett said the new plan "does appear to be a smoke screen to obtain a residential development".

"Is this in the interests of the town or in the interests of the developer?" he said.

"I feel we have been manipulated into a situation where we have no other choice.

"Whilst it doesn't appear we can do very much about it, it doesn't leave a very good taste in the mouth."

Board chairman Cllr David Kelsey said he hadn't "had faith in this application since day one", and also criticised Watkin Jones for "having already completely flouted conditions about working times".

"I find that quite appalling, that they blatantly flout the rules," he said.

Other councillors backed the plans. Cllr Christopher Wakefield said the proposal was "major investment in the Lansdowne" and would "bring people to the area".

Cllr Philip Stanley-Watts told the Echo the scheme "would be of considerable economic benefit to the area".