ONE of the biggest hotel developments in Hampshire in recent years is set to be built near Winchester, more than 15 years after planning permission was first given.

Local businessman Geoff Williams is completing the purchase of the Morn Hill site and intends to build the 120-bedroom hotel in a £9m scheme, the Daily Echo can reveal.

Local people are unhappy as it will be within the boundaries of the proposed South Downs National Park.

But Mr Williams says the hotel will improve the site by the Percy Hobbs roundabout and bring badly-needed cheaper rooms to the city.

He told the Daily Echo: "The site has always been blighted. It used to be next to a scrapyard. The site changed hands twice in the 1980s/90s. The value was far too high but now the scrapyard has been removed a hotel there is viable."

Mr Williams said: "At the moment the site looks a bit of a mess. The new hotel will help improve this gateway into Winchester."

"When you look at Winchester there is nowhere for people in the lower income bracket to stay. The Winchester Hotel is going upmarket and you already have the Royal, the Wessex and Hotel du Vin there. At the moment there is no alternative.

"I wouldn't call it 'no frills'. The bedroom quality will be equivalent to three or four stars. It will have restaurants and bars but not on a grandiose scale."

The site is well-positioned next to the A31 and A272 and close to the M3 and A34. It will be franchised to one of the major international chains and need a staff of about 45 people. Mr Williams said the completion of the sale from NTL was imminent. He declined to reveal the exact cost, even to confirm if it was a seven-figure sum, saying it depended how the site was developed.

He looks to have secured an attractive price as he entered negotiations with NTL when the five-year planning permission was close to expiring. In May he won permission from the city council to extend that deadline by another 12 months to June 4, 2005.

Mr Williams, of Petersfield Road, Ropley, is well-known in local business circles. He built the Moat House Hotel in the 1980s, now called The Winchester Hotel.

Discussions are being arranged for the next two to three weeks between Mr Williams and city council planners to talk about altering the scheme. Mr Williams is not keen on building the associated leisure facilities such as a gym and swimming pool.

But Alison Matthews, chairman of Itchen Valley Parish Council, said: "We think there should be a fresh planning application to allow local people to comment.

"This new hotel will make the Morn Hill site even more unattractive. I don't think it is a good site for a hotel. It will be in the national park."

She said local people had complained bitterly about the lack of notice for the plan to extend the deadline by a year. Orange notices in Telegraph Way were not spotted by residents until the 11th hour.

Planning permission for a hotel was originally given in 1988. A fresh scheme, designed by Winch-ester firm architecture plb was approved in June 1999. Mr Willi-ams proposes to use those plans.

Karen Brazier, acting head of tourism at the city council, welcomed the news: "There is a real need for additional hotels in the Winchester area. We have upmarket hotels and B&B but were lacking something in the middle."