Town councillors in Dorchester say they welcome the conversion of some former shops in the town centre to homes.

They have backed a proposal to convert a former estate agent shop at 54 High West Street into a home – but say they would prefer it if the shop window was changed for something smaller.

The upper floors of the building, previously used for offices, have already been converted for residential use.

The town council's planning committee said that with the changes to shopping brought about by Covid more shops in the town were likely to close and it was logical that many could be converted to housing.

But the committee decided that, where possible, shop windows should be removed rather than see the larger windows retained and covered in a film which prevents people looking in.

Town centre resident Julian Hancock told town councillors that the appearance of disused shops in the conservation area with their large windows still intact was not a good image for the town's main heritage area.

He suggested that those who lived in the converted properties might find the large glass area difficult in terms of maintaining heating or even to cover with blinds or curtains.

He said many of the properties in the town centre had been converted from houses originally and it might be better to revert to something like the original appearance.

Cllr Rory Major agreed with the view and said it would improve the look of the street to remove the large windows, a point shared by others including Cllr Andy Canning who said it was important to get it right, for the look of the area, as the process of converting former shops started to gain momentum.

Cllr Molly Rennie said: "If this goes through with the shop window we won't be able to stop it happening elsewhere. It's because it's a conservation area we should object to the shop window now…because we want to address this for the future….this building will set the scene for anything else which happens in the High Street or South Street."

Said Cllr Stella Jones: "We want a house to look like a house, not an empty shop."