DEVELOPERS have launched a third attempt to transform a 60-bed hotel in the centre of a New Forest village.

PegasusLife has lodged an appeal after civic chiefs rejected the company’s latest proposal to provide apartments for older residents by converting the former Watersplash Hotel in Brockenhurst.

The application aims to overcome objections to a previous plan that was turned down 18 months ago.

But the revised scheme was also thrown out after members of the New Forest National Park Authority (NPA) said it would dominate the site.

They also described proposed new buildings as “fundamentally awkward” and claimed they would fail to blend in with the Victorian hotel, which is part of a conservation area.

Now PegasusLife is hoping a government-appointed planning inspector will quash the NPA’s decision and allow the scheme to proceed.

The company is seeking consent to provide 24 high quality retirement apartments by converting the hotel and building villas and cottages in the grounds.

Bosses submitted the application last year after making major alterations to their original plans for the site.

The application said: “The result is a traditional design that enhances the existing building, retains and enhances the established landscape and adds new buildings that are in keeping with the character and pattern of the historic development found in the conservation area.”

The previous scheme, rejected in July 2015, aimed to provide 27 apartments and included a large extension to the hotel.

Councillor Maureen Holding told fellow members of the NPA’s planning committee: “This is a large, overbearing building that looks totally industrial and out of keeping.

“The Watersplash was a lovely hotel. When I look at what’s there now and what’s being proposed I could almost weep. The whole thing totally ignores what people want. It would be an absolute disaster.”

Councillor Leo Randall, the committee’s deputy chairman, added: “It would take an awful lot of work to make this even remotely acceptable.”

The second application was submitted less than a year later, with PegasusLife saying it had decided to take a “fundamentally different” approach to the site’s development.

But the revised scheme sparked objections from Brockenhurst Parish Council and the Friends of Brockenhurst group and was refused in October last year.

The appeal lodged by PegasusLife is expected to be heard in the next few months.

The company is also seeking consent to replace the Lyndhurst Park Hotel with 74 apartments and 12 holiday lets.