Why Town-class cruisers were not simply turned into carriers

Were Town-class cruisers considered for conversion into light aircraft carriers?

Hull ideas were studied, but the Navy needed its cruisers and moved toward the Unicorn model rather than converting Towns.

The Royal Navy needed its serving Town-class cruisers, so converting those ships was a different proposition from adapting their hull design for new carriers. Naval architects examined several cruiser hulls before using HMS Unicorn as a model. The panel jokes that these alternative studies helped support the official claim that Unicorn was a forward aviation support ship and had not been intended as a light fleet carrier template. Cheap, quickly prepared design studies could therefore help an institutional argument with the Treasury as well as explore practical alternatives.