A SWISH new riverfront hotel at Christchurch could be open by May 2005 after plans for the long-awaited replacement of the former Wick Ferry holiday camp were approved.

But despite the recommendation of planning officers and years of wrangling to secure the hotel, seen as vital to the town's economy, it took the chairman's casting vote to get the scheme through Christ-church council's regulatory committee.

At issue was the design of the three-storey, flat-roofed building proposed for the riverside site and the controversial inclusion of 12 restricted occupancy suites viewed as time-share apartments by the scheme's sceptics.

Town centre ward councillor Peter Hall claimed these suites could be used as luxury flats and complained the amount of accommodation and design of the proposed building was inferior to an earlier hotel scheme given planning permission last year.

Committee vice-chairman Cllr Malcolm Mawbey, who proposed rejecting the plans, was against the bulk of the "monolithic" structure proposed for what he called a landmark site.

"It is wide, it is high and not in character," he said.

But mayor Cllr Eric Spread-bury described the upmarket hotel as "the chance we have been waiting for".

He said: "We want it to stand out as a tourist facility in the same way as Pontins did. We have now a plan which, in my opinion, fulfils all that we wanted there."

Earlier, former Church Street restaurateur Tim Lloyd, one of the partners in the Platinum One company behind the proposed hotel, urged councillors to be confident and innovative.

He said the Captain's Club title of the project did not imply exclusivity or membership and stressed the restricted occupancy suites were not time-shares but hotel rooms which would be available for 10 months of the year including peak summer.

"Our intention is to make it a leading hotel, not a white elephant," he said.