A GREAT Yarmouth hotelier who says his once thriving business is losing £700 a week has resubmitted plans to turn his property near the seafront into 10 luxury apartments.

A GREAT Yarmouth hotelier who says his once thriving business is losing £700 a week has resubmitted plans to turn his property near the seafront into 10 luxury apartments.

Dexter Bowers, who has run the Hazelhurst Hotel in Norfolk Square for 27 years, has also appealed to the Secretary of State over the decision of the borough council's development control committee to turn down his initial planning application in July.

Councillors expressed the view then that trading conditions were likely to improve and that Yarmouth needed to keep its hotels to retain a vibrant holiday area.

However, Mr Bowers said he would spell out to next month's meeting of the development control committee what a terrible time hotels had been going through.

He said: “There are 41 hotels within 250 metres of mine. Since July the least amount of them with vacancies - and that includes the peak August period - was 17.”

On Monday night, seven of his 22 double bedrooms had been occupied and at lunchtime yesterday he only had three bookings for last night.

Mr Bowers said his hotel had always been marketed for business people rather than the holiday market, but it had suffered with the opening of new hotels in Acle, Norwich and Gorleston.