Swanage Pines Hotel four-level beach hut plan refused

The huts would be set on four levels

Plans for 45 beach huts set on four levels on Dorset's Jurassic Coast have been refused.

The proposals for the beach at the Pines Hotel in Swanage also included communal toilets and stairways.

Purbeck District Council said it had recommended the application be refused as it would "cause significant harm to the landscape character" of the area.

The hotel owners, who have not yet commented on the decision, had said the huts would help develop tourism.

The council's planning committee turned down the application following a visit to the hotel, on Burlington Road, and meeting earlier.

The huts would have looked out over Swanage Bay

A spokesman said the committee had not been opposed to the principle of some form of development, but objected to the "amount and scale" of the huts.

The council planners' report, said the proposals would "add an unnatural landscape feature and extend the built form" along the Unesco World Heritage coastline.

Natural England and the Jurassic Coast Trust also objected to the plans.

Pines Hotel owner John Puddepha had previously said he had spent "an awful lot of money" stabilising the cliffs at the hotel site and hoped the beach huts development would enable him to recoup some of the cost.

The council said the huts would "cause significant harm to the landscape character" of the area