Developer seeking to change plans for old hotel site

Current proposals, approved in 2017, for the former Shannocks Hotel site on the town's seafront, are for a new mixed-use development of flats and retail units.

Blueprints also include a restaurant on the first floor - but owner of the site Huddies Ltd are now applying to vary that aspect of their planning permission.

In their new application they say that flats, rather than a restaurant, would "enhance the development's profitability and reduce the development's risk profile, particularly in light of the Covid-19 pandemic and the ongoing risk to hospitality businesses".

The original plan showed a first floor containing a restaurant and a one-bedroom flat.

Those have now been amended, with the eatery swept away and replaced by two apartments.

The second floor also has three flats while the third floor has two.

A related application for the ground floor is seeking to merge two units and open a restaurant/takeaway.

New plans show the ground floor divided into two units, with one of them containing a kitchen and a serving counter.

Previously, the developer was granted permission to change the use of one of the ground floor units from restaurant or shop to takeaway.

The former hotel was knocked down in May this year after it had stood vacant for more than a decade.

It had occupied a prime spot at the top of the town's High Street for more than a century and was originally called the Sea View Hotel, then the Shannocks, before closing down as the No.1 Bistro Bar.

Huddies' redevelopment is to include flats and commercial units. The plans were approved in 2017, but delays led to the council making a compulsory purchase order on the building in January 2020.

Following further negotiations and delays in part due to the pandemic, the demolition was finally able to proceed earlier this year.

The redevelopment is expected to be finished by June 2023.

A decision on the fresh bids is expected by Christmas Eve this year.