Controversial plans to turn a former police station into 10 homes has been given the green light - despite fierce objections the scheme will not provide off-street parking.

Sarb Rai has been given permission to turn the building into seven flats and to demolish former outbuildings and replace them with a bungalow and two further homes.

The decision made by Allerdale council's development panel on Tuesday was unanimous, despite 17 letters of objections sent to the authority raising concerns about the lack of parking provision and privacy.

But Femi Santos, agent for Mr Rai, said the scheme would include obscured glazing to ensure privacy and on-site parking was ruled-out as it would have caused a disturbance to future residents.

The project relies on on-street parking. Existing bays designated for police cars on Eaglesfield Street would also be replaced with public on-street parking spaces, creating around four to five new spaces.

Peter Kendall spoke at the meeting at Allerdale House in Workington in his capacity of member of Maryport Town Council.

He said: "I've lived within 100 yards of this property for over 50 years and I know the area extremely well. In principle, myself and the town council do not have an issue with the conversion, but this is the only development I can think of over the last 40 years that's taken away parking spaces. The question is, do you really want to create a development with no off-street parking?"

He said the night before the panel was due to make its decision, he walked around the area to check the availability of parking.

"The police spaces mentioned are already used as unofficial parking and all that area is grid-locked in the evening with cars parked on the street. We want to see the police station developed into residential accommodation, but, please, you need to retain suitable land for off-street parking," said coun Kendall.

Josie Farmer, who lives near the old police station, also addressed the panel to raise her objections.

She said although she welcomed the renovation of a dilapidated and vandalised building, she believed some issues were still unaddressed.

"My main reason to object is the lack of discussion concerning the accommodation for extra parking space that would be needed and weather this was considered to be over-development of the site," said Mrs Farmer.

She added the county council's highways department agreed with her view that the project would add pressure on the limited on-street parking.

When consulted by Allerdale council on the plans, the highways department said: "Parking requirements will need to be met on street and, whilst this will be alleviated to some extent by the re-deisgnated police bays, this will add to the pressure on a limited resource, impacting on existing residents."

Mr Santos, speaking on behalf of the applicant, said the project had been designed professionally and had taken residents' concerns into consideration. In fact, he added, the project initially was for three homes as well as the seven flats and bungalow, but it was reduced to two homes.

He said: "Earlier the scheme had three properties and we took away the most imposing one. We have considered local residents' views, we've not just come in to try and present an arbitrary scheme to shoehorn as many properties as we can."