Pair submit hotel-complex plans

Ambitious plans for a £25 million complex featuring a 100-bed hotel, restaurant, theatre and sports centre have been submitted to city councillors.

As exclusively revealed by the Gazette in December, the proposals are for land neighbouring the University of Kent’s main campus.

They include a hotel with fourstar accommodation, a 200-seat auditorium, a business hub for post-graduates, a squash centre and a restaurant.

Described by supporters as the best design since the redevelopment of the Marlowe Theatre, the plans face a major hurdle from becoming a reality after St Edmund’s School, which owns the land in Giles Lane, has already agreed with another developer a deal for student accommodation on the plot.

But father-and-son team Ralph and Alistair Noel have still gone through with putting forward the application to city councillors.

However, Ryan Shiel, senior development planner at Kent County Council, has said certain criteria must be met for the plans to be granted.

He said: “The proposed auditorium and 100-bed hotel are likely to generate various coach movements to and from the site.

“Coach drop-off points will need to be provided within the site, and tracking will need to demonstrate that a 12-metre coach can safely enter and exit the site in a forward gear.”

Even if given permission, nothing could occur on the site unless St Edmund’s pulls out of its existing agreement.

To view the plans, search CA//18/00134 on the city council’s planning site.

How the proposed 100-bed hotel could look