Mixed-use Poole scheme to go before committee

Plans to demolish a 70-bedroom hotel in Poole to make way for a major mixed-use development are set to go before committee.The application concerns the Poole Quay Hotel on The Quay.The venue was built in 1980s following the closure of the gasworks which occupied the site up until the 1970s.In 2022, it changed its name from the Quay Thistle Hotel to the Poole Quay Hotel.Lined up now is demolishing the site to make way for a new 146-bedroom hotel, 179 apartments and two commercial units.This follows a recent proposal seeking a 118-bedroom hotel, 228 flats and three commercial units, which was refused at committee and dismissed at appeal.The 179 residential units would comprise 65 one-beds, 104 two-beds and ten three-beds, with the whole scheme set to sit across five buildings – Blocks A, B, C and D, and the hotel.A report drawn up ahead of BCP Council’s planning committee meeting on 17 August noted that the proposed, larger sustainably-designed replacement hotel would “improve the tourism offer, promote growth of the tourist economy and bring economic benefits to the wider area”.It said that it would also “provide ongoing tourism jobs, as well as an increase in tourism occupation, which would provide inward investment to benefit the local economy, due to the increase scale and range of facilities within the larger hotel development”.Having “weighed the application on its merits”, officers have recommended the scheme be approved.