Work starts on new Blackpool town centre hotel

Work has finally started on the former Yates's site in Blackpool town centre, which is earmarked for a  new Premier Inn hotel.
Diggers could be seen on the former Yates site late last weekDiggers could be seen on the former Yates site late last week
Diggers could be seen on the former Yates site late last week

A meeting of Blackpool Council was told Lancashire-based company Barnfield Construction has started work on the plot in Talbot Square, which has been empty for nine years after the historic pub was burnt down.

Machinery, including a digger, could be seen on the site late last week.

Coun Maxine Callow said it was vital the land is developed.

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She said: “We need some development. Yates’s burned down when we were in power and it’s such a mess as a prime site.”

Council leader Coun Simon Blackburn said: “Barnfield Construction has now started work on the Yates’s site to build a 150-room Premier Inn.”

The scheme also includes a Brewers Fayre restaurant. Planning permission was granted in 2015 for the 150-room six storey building.

The design was improved after the initial proposals were rejected by councillors. Town hall chiefs had originally hoped construction would begin last November.

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Yates’s Wine Lodge was destroyed when fire broke out in February 2009 and the building had to be demolished.

Since then the site has remained vacant awaiting redevelopment. Proposals for a Tesco Express and restaurants were shelved when Premier Inn came on board with its proposals.

Town hall chiefs had hoped construction would begin last November, but a report by deputy leader Coun Gillian Campbell said there had been some ‘programming issues’.