The top floors of several high-rises in the Chinese city of Hangzhou are to be lopped off to help the city's bid for world heritage status, officials say.

Two exclusive hotels, a TV tower and a number of other buildings around the beautiful West Lake area will all be made shorter, the developer said.

The 40m yuan ($5.8m) project is to help the city become a Unesco World Heritage site, Chinese media reports.

But one of the hotels named said it was unaware of the plans.