Project update: Yates's site, Talbot Square, Blackpool

The scheme also includes a Brewers Fayre restaurant.

Planning permission was granted in 2015 for the 150-room six storey building but so far no work has begun.

The design was improved after the initial proposals were rejected by councillors.

Town hall chiefs had hoped construction would begin last November , but now it is hoped it will begin in the coming months.According to a report by Blackpool Council’s deputy leader Coun Gillian Campbell there have been “programming issues” and “the commencement date is now reported to be early in 2018.”

But she added: “We remain understandably cautious, owing to the history of false starts on this site and will continue to exert pressure wherever and however we can on the site owners to get things going.”

On Thursday it will be nine years since the huge blaze broke out at the Yates’s Wine Lodge, destroying the iconic building which later 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.Andrew Brown, senior estimator at Barnfield Construction, said: “We are looking forward to commencing on this really exciting project which will complement the new public realm and tram works recently carried out in the town.

“It will be a real asset to the town.”