IT’S a sorry state of affairs when the future use of a hotel building, derelict since 2014 and which no longer has any real commercial value, becomes more important than the welfare and happiness of our grandparents because Sherlock Homes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once stayed there.
People objecting to it becoming retirement flats should remember that they will be old one day.
With its position on the quiet edge of Lyndhurst, its large garden, proximity to the local shops and beauty spots like Bolton’s Bench, I cannot think of a more suitable place for the elderly to enjoy the twilight of their lives.
New Forest National Park Authority and the district council have an opportunity to show their compassion and agree to a sympathetic conversion of the building.
The fact that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is supposed to have stayed there cuts no ice with me. So shame on people who object and who want to decide what to do with a property they do not own.
Captain Philip Pearce-Smith MBE
Holbury
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