PLANS have been unveiled for a new nine-storey hotel in Bournemouth.

The scheme would see the two-storey building at 23 Holdenhurst Road, which currently houses La Piccola Italian restaurant, demolished to make way for a 57-room hotel with a new restaurant in its ground floor.

Applicant Graziano Piovan, co-owner of the La Piccola, says in a design and access statement submitted to the council: "The local area forms part of the heart of the town with a vibrant office, student and restaurant/bar communities.

"This part of the town has seen extensive redevelopment over the last decade with large parts of this section of Holdenhurst road, and the surrounding areas, having been redeveloped.

"The street scene is now dominated by modern high rise buildings."

According to the plans the layout and modern façade of the proposed restaurant will be "of interest to both local and national operators".

"The hotel on the upper parts of the proposed building will be accessed via a double height atrium to the side of the property and the indicative hotel layout provides for 54 generous

rooms and three suites over the 1st to 8th floors."

The application also states that the building has been designed to "step down" from taller buildings towards Bournemouth Station.

The site does not include the two-storey adjoining building, containing Lansdowne Florist.

On the other side lies the five-storey Telecom House, next to which is an area of wasteland currently subject to a planning application by Watkin Jones Group, which already has planning permission to build an 11-storey office block there.

Now, Watkin Jones is planning to build a 18-storey "live-work facility" with 153 residential flats and 5,059 square metres of office space.

The scheme, dubbed 'Digital Point', received a frosty welcome from the planning board at a briefing earlier this summer. Concern was expressed over the high concentration of student accommodation in the Holdenhurst Road area.