Western Morning News (Saturday)
Hopes of new hotel for empty waterfront site
AFRESH attempt is to be made to find a developer to build a hotel on the prominent empty site of the demolished Quality Hotel on Plymouth Hoe.
Plans for an 11-floor hotel with 80 beds and a 15-floor block of 88 apartments were approved in 2017 for the land off Cliff Road overlooking Plymouth Sound.
The city council was hoping the £50million scheme would be finished in time for the Mayflower 400 celebrations this year.
But the development has not started and the scheme may end up the subject of legal action, city councillors heard.
The council’s cabinet member for finance Mark Lowry said the company behind the plans had been unable to raise finance for the project.
He told a meeting that the council was now planning to seek a new development partner to build a four or five-star hotel on the site.
Cllr Lowry said that proposals were being worked on to go out to the market within the next few months.
He said there was a demand for new hotel beds in the city, driven by economic growth and attractions such as The Box and the new Antony Gormley statue Look II on the waterfront at West Hoe.
The Labour Cabinet member said: “I am confident, given the staggering views from that site, that it will be taken up by another developer and we will be able to put a hotel up there that we are all proud of.”
Cllr Lowry said he was disappointed that the agreed scheme had not gone ahead, but the authority had worked hard for several years to bring it forward.
The council has set aside £300,000 in its capital budget for the project during this financial year.
The project was involved in a planning appeal in 2019 over the materials to be used for the cladding. The developer Henley Real Estates Development won an appeal to remove a condition that the twin tower blocks had to be kept in “good clean condition and appearance” for their lifetime.
A planning inspector ruled a 30-year guarantee on the cladding was good enough to safeguard the appearance of the buildings.
The condition was put in place by the city council to protect the longterm look of the blocks after the aluminium cladding was changed for coated steel. The developer submitted an appeal in November 2018 to have the condition removed, saying it was unjustified, unnecessary and would add unreasonable costs.
The council stood by its position, arguing it was needed because the important building was in a prominent coastal site exposed to extreme weather.
The Quality Hotel closed in 2014 and was demolished two years later after the site was bought by the city council following vandalism and fires. The 10-storey concrete block was built in 1970 in the 350th anniversary year of The Mayflower setting sail from Plymouth for America.