An international tutoring business has seen its plans to turn a former Warwick shop into an educational centre blocked by the district council.

Mathnasium had applied for planning permission to convert the closed Holland & Barrett store on High Street into a tutoring space, adding to its 1,000 centres worldwide.

The company said the town centre unit was the perfect location, owing to the convenience for parents and the number of surrounding businesses.

But Warwick District Council planners said the scheme would "result in harm to the vitality and viability of the town centre".

"The proposed use is not a retail, hotel or assembly and leisure use, nor is it an acceptable sui generis use or main town centre use, and therefore the proposed change of use is contrary to Policies TC1 and TC3 of the Warwick District Local Plan 2011-2029 and unacceptable in principle within the Warwick Town Centre Retail Area," a council report said.

The planning application had included details of other locations in the UK where former retail units had been turned into tutoring centres - but this did not sway the council's opinion.

"It is not by accident that the applicant seeks to open a Mathnasium facility within a designated retail frontage," the planning application said.

"Significant experience and analysis by Mathnasium has shown that such locations are key to successful operations as they enable parents to make use of the high street services while their child undergoes tuition. 

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"The convenience element for parents is essential considering the frequency of tuition."

Mathnasium was first launched in 2002 and now has centres in 15 countries.

There are now 15 sites in the UK, including recently opened centres in South West London.

Warwick's Holland & Barrett closed in May this year, and has since been on the market with Wareing and Co.

See the full application here.