PEOPLE living next to a trendy Liverpool boutique hotel are objecting to plans to allow guests to use balconies overlooking residential homes.

Hope Street Hotel has applied to Liverpool City Council for permission to allow the use of balconies on the 5th and 6th floors of its £5.5m extension.

Despite objections from residents that it will create a noise nuisance and invade their privacy, city planners are recommending the scheme is approved when councillors meet on Tuesday.

But, if the application does get the go-ahead, it will only be for a one-year trial period so that its impact on the neighbourhood can be assessed.

The recent expansion of the hotel – a favourite with visiting VIPs and celebrities – into a former police station next door has increased the number of bedrooms from 48 to 89.

But nearby residents have complained they have had to put up with noise disturbance and that guests can look directly into homes.

Others claim that guests using the balconies have taken photographs and used telescopes.

Among the objections received by the council during the consultation process was that “residents have already experienced guests on the balcony looking down on them as they were sitting in their back yard.

“The hotel guests were drinking and pointing a camera down on them, which caused concern and distress to the local residents.”

Another said: “It is incredibly intrusive to have people in the sky, peering over and looking into bedrooms and sitting rooms.”