New Basingstoke hotel to be a Premier Inn instead of Travelodge (From Basingstoke Gazette)

New Basingstoke hotel to be a Premier Inn instead of Travelodge

5:00pm Sunday 3rd February 2013 in Local By Chris Gregory

A SECOND application has been made to demolish a Basingstoke office block and build a hotel in its place.

Developer Fishron and hotel chain Premier Inn Hotels have jointly applied to replace Barclay House, in Victoria Street, with a five-storey hotel with 81 bedrooms.

The application to Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council comes just months after a similar plan for the site, made by Fishron and Travelodge, gained planning permission.

This new application by Premier Inn has surfaced after the Travelodge plans fell through. That plan was for an 88-bed hotel and included a ground floor retail unit or restaurant The new plan has fewer bedrooms and does not include the ground floor retail unit. However, there will be a coffee shop open to the public within the hotel.

The coffee shop is believed to be a Costa Coffee.

A statement included with the application says: “The current application represents an alternative form of hotel development to the approved scheme, without the [retail] units.

“Given that the proposed scheme does not differ significantly from the previous approval... the applicants did not consider that further public consultation was required in connection with the revised application.”

It is estimated that the Premier Inn proposal will create 30 full and part-time jobs, and that guests visiting the hotel would contribute upwards of £1million a year to the local economy.