A WEALTHY tycoon is expected to appeal after losing the latest round of his battle to build a luxury mansion overlooking the Solent.

Civic chiefs have rejected Jim Ratcliffe’s second application to bulldoze a corrugated iron house and replace it with a multi-millionpound property.

The billionaire, pictured, founder of the INEOS chemical company, had sought consent to redevelop a seafront site at Thorns Beach, near Beaulieu.

But members of the New Forest National Park Authority (NPA) complained that the proposed development would be 200 per cent larger than the existing house.

They also said the application was almost identical to a previous proposal that was rejected by the NPA in 2012 and refused on appeal. Members heard from the architect, Charles Morris, who said: “Of all the houses along the Solent shore, this is the only one that looks as if it actually belongs by the sea.”

However, the application was rejected on the grounds that the scheme was “unacceptably large”.