PLANS to convert a Salvation Army hall into two flats have been refused.

The scheme would have transformed the hall, on Sea View Road, Poole, into two one-bedroom flats.

No external changes were proposed to the hall, but the applicant said each flat had been designed to ‘meet the minimum space and light standards, with dual aspects and internal storage’, according to a design and access statement.

However, planners said the applicant had not demonstrated how the loss of the facility would not ‘result in a substantial decline in the range of facilities and services for local people’.

They added that the application had not shown that ‘the facility is no longer needed and it is not feasible to support its continued existence’.

A refusal notice for the application said: “In addition, the development would not provide sufficient community benefit to outweigh the loss of the existing facility.”

It added: “The proposed development would result in dwellings with a poor outlook, low levels of sunlight, daylight and privacy which would create an oppressive internal environment with unsatisfactory internal and external amenity space for future occupiers.”