THERE was applause from the public gallery after planning chiefs threw out an application to turn a Cheshire pub into flats.

Halton’s development management committee unanimously voted to block an application by MM Properties NW to convert the Main Top Hotel on Mersey Road in West Bank, Widnes, into six apartments.

Ward councillors Pamela Wallace and Noel Hutchinson had opposed the scheme, claiming a rise in rented properties and houses of multiple occupation (HMO) were harming the local area.  But it was concerns over parking which saw the application being thrown out.

Addressing last night’s meeting at Runcorn Town Hall, Cllr Wallace said many landlords and agents lived outside the borough and that the turnover of tenants was destroying a ‘tight nit community’. She told chiefs that voting approval would put ‘a nail in the coffin’ to ‘kill off West Bank’.

She said: "If we - and I mean all of us - let this area die due to the saturation of these developments, it will become like a landlord's campus."

Committee member Cllr Bill Woolfall said he ‘took exception’ to comments made in a letter of objection submitted by Cllr Wallace, which said: "There is a quick and quite often turn over in tenants in private renters and HMOs, they can do this because they haven't invested, often leaving ill feelings and a pile of rubbish for others to clean up and fund. Yet another abuse towards HBC.

"People who purchase their own properties tend to look after them better and invest not only in their property but the wider community they live in."

But Cllr Woolfall said: “There are a number of councillors who in fact live in council properties. Some of our officers live in council properties, so it would be unfair to say that they tend to look after their properties better or worse."

Cllr Dave Thompson, said he had concerns over lack of parking and road access. He said: “On Saturday, I did go to West Bank. I did see this site, I did see the streets. And in my opinion, the situation on the highway is much worse than what we've seen these photographs."

Chiefs subsequently voted unanimously to reject the plans, which was met with a round of applause.