Posted by 
Plans to bring Preston’s historic Park Hotel back to life have been redesigned after the firm behind the project said its previous vision would have taken “too long” to deliver.
The Heaton Group was last year given the go-ahead to turn the landmark building – which overlooks Miller Park – into a so-called ‘apart-hotel’, featuring 65 ready-to-rent spaces. It has stood empty since 2011 when it was last in use as offices for Lancashire County Council, having ceased to function as a hotel back in 1950.
The scheme also included the construction of two new residential apartment blocks – totalling more than 320 dwellings – within the grounds of the late 19th-century property, whose design often sees it likened to a Walt Disney-style castle.
Read more: St Walburge’s Church receives lottery grant to shore up southern roof
However, a meeting of Preston City Council’s planning committee heard that compliance with new regulations introduced in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire could have delayed the development of the new buildings by up to a year.
For that reason, the number of apartments for permanent residence has been slashed by a quarter – while the number of serviced rooms within the apart-hotel has been increased.
A total of 82 apartments have been removed from the blueprint for the new blocks, enabling both of them to be cut from nine storeys to six.
The first of the pair will now contain 146 dwellings – down from 193 – and the second will accommodate 93 apartments instead of the previously planned 128.
Meanwhile, the apart-hotel renovation has been rethought so that it becomes a 92-room scheme. As originally envisaged, it will also include a gym and restaurant that will be open to the public.
The redesign does not affect a fourth element of the project – the restoration of a Grade II-listed property known as No.8 East Cliff, which will still be converted into six, self-contained one-bed flats. Like the former Park Hotel, that building also used to be occupied by the county council.
Committee members unanimously approved the changes after Tom Flanagan, the agent for the plans, said they would enable The Heaton Group to “deliver this scheme sooner”.
He said that negotiating the demands of the 2022 Building Safety Act – which put in place special requirements for the construction of residential buildings with seven or more storeys – would hold-up the development by between six and 12 months.
“From a funding perspective, it’s just too long – we need to crack on now. It’s all to do with deliverability,” Mr. Flanagan explained.
Asked by committee chair Javed Iqbal when work would begin on the smaller-scale project, he said the aim was to “get on site in the next few months”, once the planning conditions imposed by the authority had been discharged.
There has been concern about the security of the hotel in recent years after it became a target for vandals. Two small fires hit the building in the space of three weeks in August.
The principle of redeveloping the Park Hotel site was established when the committee gave the original proposal the green light in February 2024.
Last October, members agreed to forego the prospect of a future cash contribution from the developer towards the creation of discounted ‘affordable housing’ elsewhere in Preston – should the scheme prove more profitable than is currently estimated – after The Heaton Group claimed that the agreement was creating too much uncertainty for investors.
The committee had already waived the usual requirement for 30 percent of properties within a new development to be made up of affordable housing, because the applicant had successfully argued that it would have rendered the project financially unviable.
Tom Flanagan told the committee that the reduced scale of the new buildings will have “a less imposing impact on the townscape” and the Park Hotel itself, which, although not listed, is considered a local heritage asset.
The hotel became Preston’s most luxurious place to stay when it opened its doors back in 1883.
Support Blog Preston: Keep our community reporting going and view the website without any adverts too. Sign up for a membership today.
Stay updated: Keep in touch directly with the latest headlines from Blog Preston, join our WhatsApp channel and subscribe for our twice-a-week email newsletter. Both free and direct to you phone and inbox.
Read more: See the latest Preston news and headlines
