ONE OF Hampshire’s best-known hotels is at the centre of a £1 million improvement scheme that aims to transform the business and secure its future.

Owners of the Balmer Lawn Hotel in Brockenhurst have applied for planning permission to give the landmark building a major facelift in a bid to boost trade.

Proposals include a new outdoor swimming pool, a bigger spa and a complete refurbishment of 25 of the hotel’s 54 bedrooms.

The four-star hotel is owned by Chris Wilson and his wife Alison, who have also applied for consent to build six houses in the grounds to help fund the improvements.

A planning document submitted by their agent says the Balmer Lawn was in a state of decline when they bought the property in 1997.

It outlines the steps taken by the Wilson family to improve the hotel, but says its average occupancy rate of 52% has resulted in the business making only a small profit.

The document adds that all the improvements and alterations listed in the application aim to put the complex on a firm financial footing.

It says: “Hotels need to increase their rates of occupancy and fill rooms as often as possible and for as long as possible. That is only achieved by adapting to ever-changing customer expectations and demands.”

The application, which has been submitted to the New Forest National Park Authority, follows the closure of two hotels in Brockenhurst and Lyndhurst.

Mr Wilson told the Daily Echo: “The hotel market is highly competitive. Only those hotels that are either offering or exceeding client expectations will survive.

"Recent closures show that hotels starved of investment will slowly decline and ultimately close.”

Built as a hunting lodge more than 200 years ago, the Balmer Lawn was converted into a hotel in about 1850.

During the First World War it became a hospital for injured troops, with soldiers being wheeled there on luggage trolleys from Brockenhurst railway station.

In the Second World War it was an army staff college and was involved in preparations for the D-Day landings.

As reported in the Daily Echo, secret documents relating to the invasion were found under the floorboards during building work at the hotel last year.

The material, some of which was marked ‘On His Majesty’s Service’, somehow survived a major fire that ripped through the building in the early 1970s.