BOURNEMOUTH council must take action to protect historic buildings from demolition, the civic society says.

While listed buildings and those in conservation areas are automatically protected, buildings which are merely 'locally listed' via the Localism Act 2011 can be demolished without planning permission.

Historic buildings consultant James Weir, from Bournemouth Civic Society, has written to urge the council to apply a regulation called an 'Article 4 direction', first on a Victorian villa at 40 Florence Road, and secondly a general direction covering all locally-listed buildings.

"We and a number of community groups are concerned by these back-door attempts to demolish heritage assets," he said.

Andrew England, council head of planning, said officers were considering the society's request, but "it is clear from national guidance that the use of such orders should only be in exceptional cases".

"In cases where an individual building might be regarded as being of special architectural or historic merit, the more common approach is to consider it for designation as a nationally listed building, which if confirmed provides the building with additional protection," he said.

The plea follows two recent cases where the planning board rejected bids to demolish buildings due to their heritage value, but the developers have since applied to knock them down using permitted development rights, essentially a 'rubber stamp'.

The Victorian warehouse at 3 Wickham Road and the Florence Road villa mentioned above have no formal heritage status but are 'locally listed' in the Boscombe and Pokesdown Neighbourhood Plan, which is not yet in force.

In October, developer European Emerging Markets Ltd got the nod from borough officers that it can demolish the former property, dating from the 1880s, despite the planning decision.

In a later board meeting where the bid by Holton Homes to build on the Florence Road villa was discussed, chairman David Kelsey expressed his concern about the loophole, stating: "One would hope that the applicant has heard the thoughts of the people in here and does have a bit of moral standards about him and will not rip out the inside of the building or do anything to damage it."

Despite this, the firm is now seeking confirmation it can knock it down.

Cllr Kelsey told the Echo: "This could be quite important in future and is a problem we need to look at. It is a nuisance that we can say no to something and they can go ahead and demolish it anyway.

"If it is demolished we can no longer use the heritage policy to object to a scheme we have concerns about."

He said the council should look at the civic society's proposal, but that a new Article 4 direction would have to go out to consultation, meaning it could take several months to come into force.