Hotel? Not in our Buck yard

PLANS TO REVAMP GRADE II LISTED BUILDING BLOCKED BY RICH NEIGHBOURS

MILLIONAIRES living on the doorstep of Buckingham Palace have helped block plans for a luxury hotel because they say their posh postcode is already being overrun with rough sleepers, tramps, tourists, rubbish and rats.

On Tuesday, January 8 Westminster City councillors ignored planning advice and refused the request to revamp the Grade II listed buildings at 4-5 Buckingham Gate which sold for a reported £30m last year

Cofingham Ltd had applied for permission to demolish the office buildings, while keeping the historic facades, and transform it into a 53-room luxury hotel, complete with a restaurant, bar, swimming pool, spa and fitness area, and a rooftop pavilion.

But the application was met with spirited opposition from put-out residents of Buckingham Gate and Stafford Place who wrote to the council expressing their anger.

They also claimed service vehicles and cabs going back and forth would add to the crowds in the busy Buckingham Palace tourism spot.

The chairman of Stafford Mansions Residents’ Association writing on behalf of 30 residents claimed growing numbers of hotels and other recent developments in the area were already causing “uncontrolled noise, dirt, rubbish, tramps, homeless people sleeping outside, peeing all over, rats, delivery crates, rubbish bins overflowing etc, every single day.”

Others complained there was already a residents’ parking squeeze in the area.

Buckingham Gate’s proximity to the Palace meant it was already often “swollen with tourist coaches and clogged up with traffic and crowds,” added another resident, saying more hotels would not help.

The Westminster Society’s representative also objected on the grounds that the number of hotels in the area was “approaching saturation” and echoing locals’ concerns about the area’s residential character

“Stafford Place is a quiet oasis in an otherwise busy central London location and this is worthy of protection,” Peter Handley wrote.

The applicant did not speak at the hearing at Westminster’s planning applications committee on Tuesday, January 8, instead sending a letter to the committee.

Consent had originally been given for 11 luxury flats at the site which the Evening Standard last January reported. had been bought by French investors for a £30m pricetag.