Alterations are being planned at Steepleton Manor residential care home, near Dorchester, to create 13 rented assisted living suites.

A planning application to Dorset Council says that the changes to the home in Winterborne Steepleton would be achieved without the need to extend the historic, grade II listed building.

A statement to the council said: "The proposed scheme aims to internally renovate the building and rationalise the internal layout to remove some of the additions thereby forming luxury suites.

"These newly-formed suites will be available to rent with the building as a whole owned and managed by Stonehouse Projects or their elected management company. This will... ensure the building remains properly maintained and cohesive.

"The history and historic architecture are a core feature that will appeal to the potential occupants for the assisted living suites and so the alterations want to make the most of the character of the building by remaining primarily internal.

"Some minor external alterations and repairs will be undertaken to facilitate the change to form the assisted living suites but will deliberately kept to the absolute minimum."

The present house was originally built in 1870 for W.C. Lambert in the Elizabethan style, popular in the Victorian period, and was faced with Portland stone.

The proposed suites are to be a mixture of one and two-bed, should planning consent be approved.

The planning application can be viewed in full on the Dorset Council website by searching application number 2023/00324, with comments open until April 23.