Hideous and totally out of keeping with the area is how angry opponents are describing a proposed three-storey block of flats, set in a conservation area on Westgate seafront.

Thanet Council’s planning committee is due to consider whether or not to grant permission for the block of 10 two bedroom flats at its meeting on Wednesday May 21.

But local opposition to the scheme, which would see redevelopment of the grounds of the one time St Cecilia’s Benevolent Home in Sea Road, is growing with local residents and councillors calling for a rethink on the design.

At the moment developers Rogate Developments want to erect a distinctive modern, curved, glass fronted building, but people living nearby say this would be out of character with the elegant Edwardian St Cecilia’s building.

St Cecilia’s was originally built by architect Ernest Martin Joseph at the beginning of the 20th century as his family home. It became the West Bay Hotel soon after the First World War. By the 1960s it had been renamed St Cecilia’s, after the patron saint of music, when the Musician’s Benevolent Fund ran it as a convalescent home. In more recent times it became a home for adults with learning disabilities. A caretaker and his family are the sole occupants at present.

See the Thanet Extra, out on Wednesday May 21, for full story.