A new 152-bed hotel next to the Esso filling station on Lower Bristol Road in Bath has been approved by council planners.
The proposed hotel on Lower Bristol Road | Image © Frank Capital
Beazer House, the old Stothert & Pitt office block, will be demolished to make way for a three-star hotel over six storeys.
The site fronts Lower Bristol Road and is bordered by Oak Street, Wood Street and the railway.
The hotel will include a restaurant and bar and create 47 new jobs. There will be car parking for 13 vehicles and 28 cycle spaces.
The planning application submitted to Bath & North East Somerset Council said the proposals will remove a “prominent eyesore building” that has reached the end of its economic life and replace it with a high-quality low-carbon sustainable new building.
Built in 1966, the office block has been empty since last November when occupier L&C Mortgage Brokers, having exercised a break clause in their lease, relocated to Newark Works.
Marketing to find a new tenant for Beazer House had begun in 2021, but no offers were received for multiple reasons, including location, specification, condition and EPC (energy performance certificate) credentials.
The council received some objections to the plans for a hotel, including about the height, that there are already enough hotels in the city, the impact on traffic and parking, concerns about noise and disturbance, and that no affordable housing is proposed on the site.
A report by property experts Savills found that Bath’s hotel supply in terms of number of bedrooms increased by 49.2% between 2009 and 2018 but this growth was not evenly distributed across all hotel classes.
There was a net increase of 1,079.3% and 112.2% in the boutique and four-star sector, whilst the number of three-star and two-star hotels in the city fell by 83.5% and 31.3% respectively over the same period.
The report concluded there is a gap in the market for three-star hotels.
The new building will be set further away from Oak Street than the current office block and at the front of the hotel will be the entrance and most of the landscaping.
There will also be new landscaping to the west and to the rear will be service access and car parking.
The proposal includes the widening of Oak Street and Wood Street to allow manoeuvrability for service and emergency vehicles to the site.
The site currently has 68 car parking spaces which will be reduced to 13, three with dedicated EV charging spaces.
A travel plan submitted with the application encourages non-car travel where practical.
Council planners have signed off the proposals, saying the principle of the loss of office space is acceptable as is the size, location, appearance and layout of the proposed hotel, and flood risk mitigation.
The hotel will be built with a buff/cream brick and have some arched features to reflect local heritage.
The planning application stated that the new development has the potential to stimulate further regeneration of the vacant railway arches at Wood Street and a possible future redevelopment of the Esso filling station site.
