A NEW application for housing on the site of a former Wimborne Minster pub has been lodged with Dorset Council.

It comes after a previous proposal was rejected for the Crown and Anchor site, now known as Crown House, next to Walford Bridge.

The new outline application is for the demolition of the office building and an outbuilding, replacing them with seven homes on the site with access and parking off the Wimborne Road.

The previous, rejected, application had asked to change the use of the main building, currently offices, and to build two other blocks of homes on the site.

The existing two storey block, believed to date to the 1880s and in the arts & crafts style, is currently used as offices and prior to that was a Hall & Woodhouse public house.

Developers had wanted to convert it to three homes with two homes in one new residential block to the south west of the main building, and another home in a new building to the north.

The new application, reference 2022/00381, also comes from Caspian Developments Ltd, based at Burley in the New Forest. It shows no details of the proposed homes, the only illustration being a map of the site.

Wimborne town council had raised concerns about the previous application claiming that it might have made it more difficult to provide a footbridge over the River Allen in the area and to gain access to open space beyond.

“The Town Council is concerned that if this section of the river bank is fenced off as part of this scheme this vision will never be realised.  For many years, children have fished from the riverbank in this location and fencing it off will deny this pastime to future generations,” said a statement at the time.

Comments on the new application should be made to Dorset Council by February 15th.

In rejecting the last proposals Dorset Council decided that the changes to the existing building, although not listed, would not enhance the area and that the application failed to fully consider the flood risk for the proposed two new buildings.