Councillors have deferred the decision on whether to allow a 77-bed hotel to be built in Epsom town centre for a second time.

The planning committee met last Thursday to discuss an amended application by Storm Land & Estates to build a Travelodge hotel in place of the Comrades Club in the Parade Epsom, who would be provided with a new purpose built facility.

After a three hour debate, councillors voted 6 to 5 in favour of deferring the decision until the next planning committee to allow further discussions and fine tuning of parking provision and rear access to the hotel.

It is the third time the company has tried to get approval for its plans in the face of significant opposition from many residents.

An earlier planning application for a hotel with 85 beds was refused in July 2009 because it was felt the building would be too large and would exacerbate existing parking problems in the town.

Last September Storm Land and Estates reduced the number of beds to 82, but a decision on those plans was deferred to give councillors and developers more time to fine tune proposals, this time scaling back the number of bedrooms from 82 to 77.

Under the plans, the hotel will not have its own car park and developers will instead advise customers to park in either the Ashley Centre or Hope Lodge Car Park.

Speaking at the meeting Residents Association Councillor David Wood said: “Our car parks are there for the benefit of the people using the town not for a specific business and there does seem to be an overriding assumption that provisions will me made because this property has been put in with no parking provision.”

Liberal Democrat Councillor Alison Kelly added: “I still think it is a little bulky and I don’t feel it leaves sufficient space around it to look like it belongs in that street scene. I’m still concerned for residents that we really have not addressed the parking concerns.”

A lack of rear service access to the hotel was also called into question by councillors.

Reacting to the decision Roger Vail, executive vice president of Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels, who was representing the Comrades Club at the meeting, said: “They have an old building which is now becoming quite dilapidated.

"They don’t want to leave the area or close the club but this is a way they can maintain the freehold and get a new building at a cost to the developer.

"They have used this facility for many years and they are ordinary decent people and feel very frustrated that their views have not been taken on board.

"If a decision isn’t made quickly they will have to go elsewhere or lose their club and I think that’s a great loss."

He added: “We can’t service from the rear because we don’t have access thorough private land but the design of the scheme has allowed lorries to pull up and park on the forecourt of the building off of the highway, but councillors are saying that’s not good enough.

"They are being very pedantic just to scupper this planning application.

"I understand parking is an issue but there’s no way round it when you live in town centres.”

The ammended application received 29 letters of objection and a petition signed by 70 people.

Developers will have until March 15 to reconsider the parking and service access provisions to the hotel before the application goes before the planning committee for a fourth time.