nine-to-five desk job and run a retirement home.

But Mrs. Carleen Griffith was this week refused permission to turn the downstairs of her Cove Valley Drive home into a retirement home for eight people.

However, she said yesterday that since she submitted the application in January, she had changed her mind.

"I've decided to have only four residents and I don't need Planning permission or a licence for that,'' she said.

The DAB had turned down the application on the grounds not enough information was submitted and the site does not have direct access from a public road.

But Mrs. Griffith said she prefers having just four senior citizens living there because she can spend more time with them and get to know them better.

"I don't want the home to lose its personal touch,'' she said.

Currently she has two senior citizens living in and runs a day care facility.

And from time to time people leave their elderly parents temporarily in her care if they are going on holiday.

With the help of her assistant she supervises activities and cooks meals for them.

Mrs. Griffith said the main reasons behind her decision to leave her accounting job and run a retirement home were her enjoyment of being with old people and to make money.

She added there are no retirement homes or day care facilities for the elderly in St. David's.

The DAB also turned down an application by Raphael Limited -- owned by Transport Minister the Hon. Ralph Marshall -- to build four cottages on four lots on Peacehaven Lane, Hog Bay Flat, Sandys Parish.

The DAB said the developments may cause "significant damage'' to the land the company intends to build them on. That land is zoned arable under the 1983 Development and Planning Act.