Hotel plan approved for old ‘Westward’ site
PLANS have been approved for a hotel, flats and multi-storey car park on the site of the former Westward Television studios in Plymouth city centre.
The estimated £30million development will fill the sloping land between Derry’s Cross and The Crescent, opposite a listed terrace dating from the 1860s near the junction with Millbay Road.
The television studios were later used as offices by solicitors Foot Anstey before being demolished to leave an empty site, currently partly in use as a car park.
The city council has now granted outline permission with a series of conditions for three buildings in a new application, following the refusal of a scheme in 2019.
But a landmark wall, with a distinctive six-sided hexagon design and blue tiles which some people wanted saved, is set to disappear.
The approved plans are for a 150-bedroom hotel opposite the historic terrace in front of a 300-space multi-storey car park, with a block of 88 flats across a public walkway through the site to Derry’s Cross, and two commercial units.
The main pedestrian access to the 11-floor hotel will be from The Crescent, with a reception, cafe and bar at street level and bedrooms on the upper levels. The car park is on the lower ground behind the hotel, with 13 levels. The block of flats over eight floors will be in a separate building on the other side of the public walkway, parallel to Athenaeum Lane, which will widen out at Derry’s Cross into a space to be called Athenaeum Piazza fronted by shops on either side.
A previous scheme was rejected in 2019 because of the layout and lack of housing. The new plans reflected changes after discussions with planners and include 30% of the one and two bedroom flats being classed as “affordable”. The site is part of land once known as Stray Park, which was used as a burial ground for the Royal Naval Hospital at Stonehouse Creek from the mid-18th Century for around 60 years.
Several hundred skeletons have been excavated as a result of recent developments in the area, but the number remaining buried could be up to 2,000. The latest version of the hotel showed a revised curved design for the double-height ground floor opposite the listed terrace in The Crescent.