IT’S BACK to the drawing board for the £65 million pound redevelopment of the Knoll House Hotel site at Studland.

Dorset Council’s area planning committee has rejected a revised scheme, almost a year after turning down a slightly larger proposal.

Planning committee chair Cllr Toni Coombs told developers, Kingfisher Resorts Studland Ltd, that there was a wish to see the site redeveloped to become the high-end resort location the company wants – but some of the details needed to be tweeked.

“It is clear that everyone support the principle and that to have the redevelopment of the Knoll House Hotel is an absolute boon for Dorset and something we all want to see – but its got to be the right application.

“It’s nearly there, but not quite.: it’s very close but it does need extra work doing,” she said at the end of a two-hour debate.

Dorset Council planning officers had recommended refusing the application on a series of grounds – including the effect on important heathland sites, the Heritage Coast and the wider landscape together with the scale, form and massing of some aspects of the new buildings.

Concerns were also raised about the effect on the area’s ‘dark skies’ zone and the need for a thorough biodiversity plan, together with more information about how surface water drainage will be dealt with.

Changes from the original proposals include reducing the height of the main 30-bed hotel building and cutting back on the number of apartments, from 22 to 18.

In total the current proposal offer 280 bed spaces, sixty less than current site capacity, although almost all the live-in staff accommodation has been removed from the plans.

Kingfisher say their proposals would give an economic boost for the area while at the same time improving the layout and appearance of the site, which currently has around 30 separate buildings.

In addition to bed spaces across the hotel site, villas and apartments the resort would offer  a spa, swimming pool and restaurant. All of the existing buildings on the site would be demolished, with only the central façade of the original hotel building being retained. Many of the buildings would have ‘green’ roofs with solar panels proposed throughout the site.

Ward councillor Cherry Brooks said that she believed, as did most local people, that Kingfisher had listened to previous concerns and had come up with a scheme which was “massively improved.”

“It is now six years since the application was first submitted which has been a considerable cost to the applicant, and to us (the council) in resources… I am sure many would have given up by now and it’s possibly what some of the objectors would have liked.”

“We, like the residents of Studland, should be welcoming the proposed improvements …  the existing hotel is starting to deteriorate badly,” she said.

Knoll House was built in the early 1900s, becoming a hotel in 1931 and during the war years was requisitions for troops working on beach defences. It reopened as a hotel in 1946.

The developers had previously claimed the redevelopment would provide £8.5million in benefits to the area and provide more than 230 jobs with an electric bus for guests and staff running from 6am to midnight daily across Poole, Wareham and the wider Purbeck area to reduce car use.