A FORMER Wellington public house where the town council wanted to provide a youth cafe along similar lines to its Kings Arms Community Hub may instead be turned into a hairdressing salon.

The council failed to follow through with its proposal and now the owner of the Dolphin Inn, in Waterloo Road, has applied for a fresh planning permission to convert the ground floor to offices and a hairdressers.

The Dolphin closed during the Covid pandemic in January, 2020, and was sold in 2023.

Planning permission was granted in February of last year for the change of use of the ground floor to a community space with the town council expressing its interest in using it as a youth hub.

However, planning agent Claire Alers-Hankey, of Greenslade Taylor Hunt, said the town council had now dropped its plans.

At the same time, consent was given for the upstairs of The Dolphin to be used as offices by holiday accommodation provider Sleeps12.com Ltd and for part of it to be converted to a three-bedroom home.

An earlier bid to have The Dolphin registered as an asset of community value was rejected in November, 2020.

Ms Alers-Hankey said: “As the town council has now decided it no longer needs the community space and there has been no local demand for a community space from an alternative user, the change to a hairdressers and office space would provide employment opportunities and allow for the expansion of a local business, Sleeps 12, or another local business.”

She said the Wellington Place Plan referenced the potential of using the Dolphin Inn as a community asset, including space for a youth club.

Ms Alers-Hankey said: “This clearly supports to reuse of the former pub building to alternative uses that offer a community facility of some sort, and is not concerned with the Dolphin Inn remaining as a public house.

“The town council no longer has a demand for it in this location and no other local users have expressed an interest in using the space for a community space.”

Ms Alers-Hankey said marketing information at the time of the pub’s sale in 2023 clearly indicated there was no interest in the property continuing to be used as a pub.

She said: “As has been the case with other former pubs in Wellington, such as the Kings Arms, the way in which communities socialise has drastically changed over the last 10 to 15 years, with the popularity of pub drinking dropping significantly.

“This has left a number of former pub properties in Wellington vacant, falling into a state of disrepair due to lack of investment and maintenance, and contributing nothing toward the local community.

“The applicants have a potential occupier for the hair salon and the office space can be used by Sleeps 12 and/or another occupier.

“This creates a reduced risk that the building will remain vacant for a further prolonged period as there is already a genuine occupier, rather than just a speculative use in the form of a community centre.”