Investment hope for rundown hotels in Blackpool

The latest planning application submitted to the council is seeking permission to demolish the Waldorf, Kimberley and Henderson hotels on New South Promenade in South Shore and replace them with 63 apartments.

The scheme would see a four to seven storey building constructed offering 58 two-bedroom apartments, four three-bedroom and one four-bedroom apartment, with 66 parking spaces at the rear.

Town hall planners approved proposals for 88 apartments on the site in 2017 but that permission has now expired after attempts to sell the hotels for redevelopment failed.

But Kenricks Commercial Estate Agents, based in Church Street, Blackpool, confirmed a new investor was now poised to buy the site subject to the latest proposals securing planning permission.

Documents submitted with the application say: “This site has been an eyesore for a number of years since the closure of two of the hotels and the closure of the third is imminent.

“The dereliction causes visual harm to the area and to its remaining inhabitants.”

They add the aim is to create “an aspirational, but very real piece of architecture, that is in character with its immediate environs.

“A building which will act as a catalyst for essential regeneration to the local

area. The adjacent Hilton Hotel has started a regeneration of the area and the proposal would add to that uplift in design at the site.”

The Kimberley Hotel has been closed and boarded up since 2011, while the Henderson is also no longer trading.

The first bid to redevelop the site with 166 apartments was thrown out by the council in 2009 with councillors saying the scheme was over intensive and since then proposals have been scaled back.

The application will now go before council planners at a future date for consideration.

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