Hotel ‘not high enough standard’ say centre bosses
197-ROOM BUILDING IS REJECTED
A NINE-STOREY hotel has been refused planning permission after Trafford Centre bosses thought it wouldn’t be of a ‘high enough standard’.
Plans for a 197-bedroom hotel with a gym, all en suite rooms, reception, restaurant and meeting rooms on land near Barton Road in Stretford have been halted after Trafford council unanimously dismissed it.
The hotel, which would have sat between Barton Road and the slip road of Junction 9 of the M60, near the roundabout at Lostock Circle, was due to employ around 40 staff within a 15-minute drive of the Trafford Centre.
But Trafford Centre owners Intu wrote to the council to indicate their concerns about the plans, saying that the ‘mid-range’ hotel chain (either Holiday Inn Express or similar) proposed for the site was not of a high enough standard.
In a letter to the planning committee, legal representatives said the provision of at least a four-star hotel is written into existing planning documents for the area around the Trafford Centre.
They said a Holiday Inn Express would not meet this requirement, among others.
A number of councillors, including the chairman of the council’s planning committee, Coun David Acton, also wrote to the council expressing their initial concerns over the application by Create Developments, particularly its potential impact on nearby residents.
Coun Mike Cordingley, who also sits on the committee, was not convinced.
He said: “The one remaining issue that I have is the sheer height of the building. The original plan was for a seven-storey hotel.
“It then became nine and that actually made all the difference to me.
“I think it casts a shadow over a fundamentally residential area on most sides.”
Councillors voted unanimously to refuse the application in full, in spite of council officers’ recommendation to approve it, because the ‘siting, scale, height, massing and external appearance would result in a dominant and obtrusive form of development, which would be out of keeping with the character of the surrounding area’.