THE controversial land train garage on Boscombe seafront was built contrary to planning permission, it has been revealed.

The £351,000 shed is about 2ft taller than its planning permission allows and the building, which has been dubbed a "monstrosity", could be pulled down.

In 2005, Bournemouth Borough Council's head of leisure services, Roger Brown, gained planning permission for a garage of about 3.5m high but council officers supplied the contractors with the wrong plans and the 100m long shed that was built by Spetisbury Construction is almost 4m tall.

The extra 60cm or so could provide a reason to pull the hated building down.

Cllr Nick King, cabinet member for communications at the council, said: "We will be having an inquiry to find out how this happened but we are not blaming the contractors."

He said that there were three options open to the council at this stage: applying for retrospective planning permission, altering the building to comply with the plans or demolishing it.

He said: "If we had a magic wand we would knock it down and start again. I think it is one of the ugliest buildings that has ever been built."

Instead he said the council would attempt to disguise the structure, which he described as "a missile silo", with some artwork within the next couple of weeks.

Cllr Michael Filer, cabinet member for economy and tourism, will then assess the situation and make a recommendation to the council. It is unlikely that the structure will be demolished before the summer season.

Cllr King said: "One thing we do not want on the beach during the summer season is a building site.

"But personally I think that the garage is in the wrong place and there are plenty of less sensitive places it could be built.

"I would like to see luxury beach huts built on that piece of seafront land."

He described the situation as "another fine mess the Liberal Democrats have got the council into" and said: "I shudder to think what else we might find."

But Claire Smith, Liberal Democrat group leader, said that the idea to build a garage on that site had been a Tory initiative before the previous Liberal Democrat administration came to office.

The garage was part of a regeneration scheme which includes changes to Boscombe Pier, building more beach chalets and more parking spaces and Cllr Smith said that public consultation about the plans was not carried out thoroughly enough.

She said: "We had several meetings but perhaps people were looking at the more major aspects of the scheme such as the pier and the garage was not noticed.

"We need to learn from this and prevent it happening again.

"We have to look at plans closely and see what might make people upset otherwise these things come back to bite you."