Green light set for city centre hotel extension

Plans to expand and refurbish a prominent Swansea hotel with additional rooms and a rooftop bar look set to progress at a planning meeting this week.Permission is being sought to update the Grand Hotel on Ivey Place in the city centre with a four-storey rear extension that will facilitate the provision of 42 additional rooms.The proposal will add 29,371 sq ft of extra space to the four-storey hotel, which includes residential, leisure and conference facilities.Also included as part of the plans is a new roof terrace extension and bar which looks to “upgrade the overall quality of the existing tourism accommodation”.A planning statement submitted with the application said that Swansea tourism is performing “below the Wales average and significantly below the UK average”.As a result, there is a “significant opportunity to grow its tourism base”.The statement added: “The tourism market in Swansea is definitely shifting with more demand for high quality accommodation and this proposal is seen as an opportunity to potentially help provide these alternative means of accommodation”.If approved, the expansion would also result in employment opportunities during the construction period and once operational.Taking everything into account, the plans will go before Swansea planning committee on 6 December with the recommendation for approval.