COUNCIL chiefs have blocked an attempt to axe a luxury hotel from a showpiece development intended to transform part of the Hampshire coastline.

The developer has been refused permission to delete the five-star facility from its multi-million-pound scheme to redevelop the former Webbs chicken factory site in Lymington.

New Forest councillors have rejected an application by Paxton Holdings Ltd to replace the hotel with a 60-bed care home for the elderly.

Lymington councillor Kevin Ault, who is also the town's mayor, said: "A care home would be a less than imaginative use of this spectacular site."

Plans to build a hotel and more than 300 homes on the land were approved last year.

Pennington councillor Martina Humber said a hotel would provide the proposed development with a central feature where people could go for a drink, have a meal or attend a conference.

However, Paul Uttley, representing the applicant, said the viability of a luxury hotel on the site was in doubt.

He revealed that the owners of budget hotels were the only companies that had expressed any interest in the proposal.

Mr Uttley added that a care home would generate fewer traffic movements than a hotel and would require fewer parking spaces.

However, Pauline Elsworth, chairman of the town council's planning committee, said Lymington and Pennington already had seven care homes that provided a total of 228 beds.

She also pointed out that only a third of the people living in the Lymington area were of retirement age.

Planning officers urged councillors to support the scheme, claiming a care home on the site was a "reasonable alternative" to a budget hotel.

Brockenhurst member Maureen Holding, the council's Cabinet member for health and social inclusion, also backed the proposal, highlighting the shortage of care home places in the Forest, saying hard-pressed managers received 20 applications for every bed that became available.

However, the proposal was rejected by 13 votes to six.