New Wetherspoons hotel planned for Southsea to be decided next week

Councillors will consider an application for a Wetherspoons hotel in the unused floors above The Lord Palmerston pub at a planning committee next week.

Hotel plan unveiled for Wetherspoons in Southsea

If given the go-ahead the rooms will be converted into 24 bedrooms across four floors, with a balcony terrace created on the first-floor.

The doors to the hotel will be separate from the pub entrance utilising an existing service entrance and staircase that leads up to the first floor.

A spokesperson for JD Wetherspoon PLC said the project would cost £2m and create 15 new jobs.

Residents had mixed reactions. 13 raised objections while two wrote in support.

Susan Lloyd who lives in Auckland Road West said: 'Supporting it may be great if you don't happen to live opposite. I live within a few feet of the proposed beer garden, I have no doubt that the noise would severely detriment our quality of life inside both our house and use of our garden.'

Ashby Place resident John Ling agreed. 'I do not object to the conversion to hotel rooms but no matter how this proposal is presented, having a roof terrace at first floor level will definitely result in more noise in Ashby Place which will affect my quality of life,' he said.

'It would be very naive of anyone to believe that customers would not use this area as a drinking and smoking area.'

But David Compton, of Clarendon Road, felt the conversion would benefit the area. He said: 'I moved to Southsea in 2009 when the area was suffering from the financial crash, there were many empty units and the area started to look like a ghost town, the invasion of charity shops confirmed that.

'Since then through investment by the local authority and the near 100 per cent occupation of premises it has become a vibrant community and more importantly, has a high number of small independent businesses.'

A new lift will be installed in the building if the application goes through and Wetherspoons has agreed that the terrace will close at 9pm every day to avoid disturbance.