PLANS have been submitted to extend the ballroom at Bournemouth's Hilton Hotel.

Owner THAT Bournemouth Company Ltd wants to build a three-storey extension out from the side of the building in Terrace Road, on the opposite end of the building from its recently-opened bar Tonic Social, which was granted permission earlier this year.

The planning statement says: "The ballroom currently accommodates function space for circa 300 people.

"The limitations of the current capacity causes us to lose out on enquiries for ‘residential’ events, which are ‘new to Bournemouth’ events, often competing with other large conference locations across the UK.

"Benefiting from both integrated access through the existing ballroom/function space, and also a new street-facing entrance, the enlarged space will act as a high-quality destination for circa 500 people capacity ‘residential’ events, that are not otherwise catered for in Bournemouth."

The firm says partitions will allow smaller events with up to 100 people to run simultaneously.

The application also includes changes to the landscaping and planting around the Terrace Road side of the hotel to "create a more considered, higher quality and more unified urban landscape frontage".