North Somerset Council has rejected a proposal to knock down a country pub close to Bristol Airport and turn it into a 36-bedroom hotel.

The plans would have seen the Bungalow Inn, in Butcombe, replaced with a hotel and 93 car parking spaces.

However, the council’s planning committee decided at a meeting on August 10 that the hotel would have too many car parking spaces in relation to its size.

The committee also feared the site would be used for unauthorised airport parking and said the roads close to the site were not large enough to accommodate hotel traffic.

Liberal Democrat councillor Deborah Yamanaka, who represents Wrington, said the hotel would create traffic problems if it was ever built.

She said: “The roads are very narrow and are single track and are really not adequate enough to expect traffic to get to the parking spaces at the hotel.

“It is more or less a single track road and the visibility at the junction is also very poor, so there really should be a condition to improve the visibility.”

Councillors also felt the proposals were inappropriate for the site’s greenbelt location and raised concerns about the site’s viability.

Plans for a smaller motel were approved at the site last year but the building was never constructed.

Congresbury ward councillor Tom Leimdorfer said the hotel idea was a substantially different proposal.

He said: “Last year we had an application approved for what was considered a great facility of 16 bedrooms.

“Quite clearly for some reason the applicants decided not to build there. Is this because the business case is not viable?

“Now we have something which is quite different in nature and looks like something you would expect in an urban setting.

“This building is an urban-looking motel with comparably smaller public use. I think we are in a totally different kettle of fish from the one which was just approved a year ago.”