Hotel ‘will be left to rot’ (From Echo)

Hotel ‘will be left to rot’

3:11pm Monday 13th February 2012 in Southend By Stephen Hackwell

A FURIOUS developer has vowed to mothball an iconic hotel after a third bid to reopen it was rejected.

Sinclair Brown, who owns the Balmoral Hotel in Valkyrie Road, Westcliff, spoke out after Southend Council threw out his application to transform it into a live-in training centre for homeless young people.

The bid was the third attempt in nine months to find a new use for the building, which closed as a hotel more than two years ago.

Mr Brown said he would now leave the hotel to rot until the economy recovered.

He stormed: “What else can I do?”

“It seems every time we turn a corner with the building, we hit another problem. The council will not support us in anything.

“I’ll leave it empty and mothball it until it becomes worthwhile to do something with it.”

The Balmoral opened as a hotel in 1979, but its trade slowly died and by 2010 it was being used as a bedsit complex.

Following neighbours’ complaints, Mr Brown applied for planning permission last year to keep the bedsits.

However, councillors rejected the application and ordered the building to be shut down.

A second bid to demolish the hotel and replace it with an 85-bedroom nursing home was also thrown out a few months later.

For the last six months, the building has been temporarily used by Circle Housing to look after vulnerable teenagers.

The latest application built on the success of that scheme by proposing to use the hotel as a Foyer – part of a national chain which offers housing and training to 16 to 25-year-olds.

Mr Brown said the idea would give young people much-needed opportunities and combat Southend’s spiralling youth unemployment rate.

But councillors turned down the bid after experts at the Civic Centre said they were worried about the lack of council control over the project.

Neighbours also claimed it would lead to antisocial behaviour, noise and disturbances.

Tory councillor Nigel Folkard, whose Milton ward includes the hotel site, said: “It is very sad we have seen the demise of this hotel.

“However, I do not think this proposal is the right solution.”