New £5.4m hotel gets green light
Travelodge on Rainbow Slides site
Planning permission has been awarded for a new £5.4 million Travelodge hotel in Stirling on the site of the former Rainbow Slides swimming pool.
The firm announced earlier this year it hoped to create 20 new jobs in the new 74-bedroom hotel and give the local economy a £1.3m boost.
This week Stirling Council planners granted conditional consent for the building in Goosecroft Road, which will be located above a restaurant and retail units. The company opened its first hotel in Scotland at Bannockburn, close to the M80 in 1986 and the new hotel will be one of 19 properties Travelodge plans to open in the near future.
Opened in 1975, Rainbow Slides – formerly known as the Provost’s Pool – had a lifespan of 25 years but was still functioning in December 2007, when a roof collapse forced its closure.
Initially the closure was expected to be temporary, however with the PEAK sports centre already under construction at Forthbank Sports Village, Stirling councillors decided against spending £50,000 on repairs and shut the building for good in February of the following year.
Prior to this application, Allan Water Developments and Travelodge were originally granted planning permission for a mixed use development, including a hotel and student accommodation, in 2013.
But, while the building was demolished, the economic climate at that time was said to have made it difficult for work to begin on that development.
A well-known mural at the entrance to the building, however, which was to have been demolished along with the building, was given a reprieve. Charles Anderson, a graduate of Glasgow School of Art, completed the mural, which featured swimmers and divers and was one of the few remaining created “in-situ and in concrete”.
Stirling Civic Trust and Mercat Cross and City Centre Community Council o called for its retention but there was no alternative site at which it could be displayed.
However, Stirling construction company Ogilvie’s, who built the pool and commissioned the mural, agreed to have the artwork removed and reerected at their headquarters in Stirling.