Dorchester Prison site developers have won the right to convert a former stable into a home.

It ends, for now, hopes of a pedestrian access through to the development from Glyde Path Road.

Cllr Robin Potter told Thursday's planning committee that, in retrospect, the council should have done more when the original planning permission was granted to ensure the footpath was built.

“This is very regrettable. We were promised a footpath and we're now not going to get one. We should have put a condition on, but we didn't.”

He and other councillors said that City and Country had promised the path in its original literature – although planning officers said it never reached the stage of an application, or condition of the consent.

“We were promised a footpath but we can clearly see that a verbal promise is only as a good as the paper it is written on, to quote one of the Marx brothers,” said Mr Potter.

Fellow Dorchester councillor Stella Jones said it was not adequate to have only one access to the site and argued that planning policy suggested developments should have good links to the surrounding area.

“I don't think anyone would have agreed the prison site with just one access...we were shown a plan and told there would be an access...it is not what people were expecting,” she said.

But highways officer Ian Madgwick said that the level when more than one access was required was 300 homes – which was why his department did not pursue the access at the time as the Dorchester Prison site was far short of that.

The agreement to the conversion of the stable to a single-bedroom home now leaves the developer with two approved applications for the site – the other is for a landscaping scheme for the grounds leading to the stable from the prison.

Councillors were told that the situation was not unusual and that it would be up to the developer to decide which permission to implement.

David Moss from Dorchester Civic Society also objected to the conversion – arguing that planning policy suggested that the pedestrian link should not only be allowed, but encouraged.

“If these policies are to mean anything this should be refused,” he said.

Adrian Fox from City and Country said that the application was compliant with all local policies and the conversion would add an affordable home to the town's housing stock.

The application had been delayed twice for investigations after claims that the site had been earmarked for a pedestrian route during the early development stages.

A report to the district planning committee on Thursday, did not support the claim.

City and Country say that to have an arch through the building would make it too small to be a viable home and lead to security risks.

Planning committee vice chairman Cllr Nigel Bundy said that lessons had been learned: “It doesn't show planning in a good light. In hindsight we should have done things differently.”

Despite planning permission being granted in 2016 no major works have started on the prison site and the company has been in talks about either a partnership, or another developer, taking on the scheme.