Plans by the football manager Harry Redknapp to demolish a former hotel and replace it with “posh” apartments would result in 30 people being made homeless, including several with disabilities, cancer sufferers, ex-offenders and other vulnerable individuals, according to opponents to the scheme.

Clifford Henley, one of the residents, claimed Redknapp – who was sacked by Birmingham City in September – stood to make a fortune from the 21 flats and three mews houses, adding: “To be chucking 30 blokes on the streets with no consideration whatsoever – it’s brutal.”

Henley claimed the proposals would mean “the destruction of this perfectly habitable building for massive profit ... It’s just walking over poor people”. But a spokesman for Redknapp’s company defended the scheme, saying the planned development of one- and two-bedroom properties “is not ‘posh’”, with prices ranging between £160,000 and £300,000, and was open to buyers using the government’s help-to-buy scheme.

The Victorian building in Bournemouth provides bedsit accommodation, and those opposing the plans include the leaseholders, Gerry and Wendy Hunt, aged 80 and 78, who started running the premises as a hotel almost 30 years ago, and are among those who would be made homeless, along with their son, who uses a wheelchair.

Henley said he found the plans particularly galling because Bournemouth was “the town that made Harry Redknapp” – the 70-year-old played for Bournemouth during the early 1970s and began his long career as a manager at the club in 1983.

Redknapp and his wife Sandra are the sole directors of Pierfront Developments, the property company behind a number of planned residential schemes in the Bournemouth, Poole and Torquay areas. In March 2016, Pierfront paid £1.25m for the freehold of the former Belgravia Hotel, in the town’s East Cliff conservation area, at which point they became the Hunts’ landlord. A few months later, the couple received notice that their tenancy would end in June 2017 because the company wanted to pull down the late 19th-century building and build flats.

However, Pierfront’s original plans for 32 flats were turned down by Bournemouth council in February, partly on the grounds that the proposed development was “overly large and unsympathetic”, would be unsuitable for a conservation area and “would not provide a high standard of living conditions for future occupants”. The council said the proposals “fail to make an appropriate contribution towards affordable housing”.

The East Cliff area of Bournemouth. Photograph: Roy Rainford/Getty Images/Robert Harding World Imagery

Undeterred, the Redknapps are pressing on with the scheme and have put in a fresh application for a smaller block of apartments, plus the mews houses. The planning application says the building currently provides “low-quality bedsit accommodation”.

The Hunts bought the property in 1988 and run it commercially as a large house in multiple occupation (HMO). There are nine studio flats, one flat and 19 bedrooms, and it is home to 28 people, all men, some of whom have lived there for up to 10 years. The Hunts live in a cottage in the grounds, which would also be demolished.

Hunt said a number of the residents were disabled or suffered ill health and received personal independence payments (PIP), the benefit that helps with the extra costs of a long-term health condition or disability. Those living in the building include her 53-year-old son, who needs a wheelchair after a car accident, and her 38-year-old grandson, who has epilepsy. Two of the residents have cancer.

Some of the men were previously homeless but now have jobs. “If they haven’t got a place to live, they would lose their work,” said Hunt.Others are former prisoners. “They are fine now – they’ve got a place to live and get a bit of benefit, and they don’t reoffend.”

Hunt said a number of agencies and organisations referred people to the former hotel, including the police and staff at the town hall. She added that if the proposals from Pierfront ot the go-ahead, “we would all be homeless ... They [the Redknapps] have got as much money as they need, but they just don’t want the poor people to have anything”.

Separately, as part of their battle to stay, the Hunts have gone to court to seek a new 10-year lease (the last one expired in late 2016). Pierfront has opposed this, and it is understood that it has argued that if a new tenancy were to be granted, the rent should be increased from £33,000 a year to £45,000. Hunt said she and her husband would struggle to afford that amount.

Henley, 49, who has lived in the property for three years, said he would have nowhere else to go if the “perfectly serviceable” building was demolished. He added: “He [Redknapp] stands to make a fortune.”

Redknapp has had a 34-year managerial career spanning 1,399 matches with Bournemouth, West Ham, Tottenham, Portsmouth (twice), Southampton, Queens Park Rangers and Birmingham City. When he was sacked in September, he indicated there was “every chance” his football career was over.

Gareth Davies, a spokesman for Pierfront, said in response to Henley’s comments: “None of the residents are aware of the details of the financial investment, risk and fair commercial expectation of return that is associated with this scheme. Pierfront acquired the property without planning permission, fully aware of the tenant being in place and with a short period of time until the tenancy was to end. The development is not ‘posh’, the units ranging from £160,000 to £300,000, and with the help-to-buy scheme currently available in support.”

He said the new plans would reduce the mass and bulk of the building by about 25% and increasie the amenity space by 20%.

Davies added: “Mr and Mrs Hunt currently run the property as a profitable commercial venture, renting the individual rooms to tenants on a mainly short-term basis. They have had plenty of notice during which to relocate their business in a normal and orderly fashion, but it would appear that they have chosen not to do so.” The proposed increase in rent, he said, “is in line with the current rentable value and has been proposed by a leading local commercial agent”.

A number of footballing figures have moved into property development or buy-to-let. However, in an interview last month, another footballing legend, the former England and Arsenal goalkeeper David Seaman, said that owning too many properties was “just greedy and expensive”. Meanwhile, Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs made headlines when they allowed a group of 50 rough sleepers to camp out for several months in a Manchester city centre building they were converting into a boutique hotel and private members’ club.