THE owners of a derelict Southampton hotel have been ordered to restore it to its previous state or face prosecution by the City Council.

But brothers Sam and Glenn Sahota, who want to convert the rundown 19th century Royal Albert Hotel into 12 flats, say they have done nothing wrong.

Council planning officers served an enforcement notice on the pair after claiming to have observed a number of unauthorised alterations being carried out to the grade two listed building.

An application by the Sahotas to develop the building in Albert Road South, famous for having one of the longest bars in Southampton, was refused in February this year due to insufficient detail.

Since then the city council says workmen have been installing double-glazed windows, kitchen units, roof tiles to the rear of the building and a glazed lantern-style roof light. The Sahotas, who claim to have spent more than £200,000 buying the 1853-built Royal Albert Hotel for their company Homelife Lettings, will have 56 days upon receiving the notice to return the hotel to how it was prior to the alterations or face legal action.

Sam Sahota said: "We will comply with the enforcement notice, but we don't understand what we have done wrong. The only thing we have done since we failed to get planning permission is to secure the premises on police advice after we had a lot of break-ins.

"This is the biggest project we have been involved in but it's just proving one problem after another. The first application would have been passed if our former architects had done their job properly.

"We don't want any confrontation with the planning department at the council. We just want to get on with building these flats."

The Sahotas, who live in Portswood, submitted a new application to build 12 flats on the site on April 29. It is expected to go before the council's planning and rights of way panel on Tuesday, July 2.

A Southampton City Council planning office spokesman said: "The enforcement notice is effective from May 3 and we will take Homelife Lettings to the magistrates' court if they fail to comply with it."

When it was open, The Royal Albert Hotel was always regarded with great affection. It was one of the oldest hotels in Southampton.

It had lain derelict since the mid-1980s and has been targeted by vandals.