UK: An extension to Liverpool’s Hope Street Hotel will include aparthotel suites, subject to planning permission.
Owner David Brewitt has submitted plans for a scheme to add new floors to the Hope Street Hotel, adding another 12 rooms and 12 aparthotel suites by building extensions to the 1931 wings of the former Blind School, which he also owns.
The ground floor of that 1931 extension has already been brought back into use, housing Pizza Express and 92 Degrees Coffee.
The proposed rooftop extensions, ranging from two to four storeys high, along with an “infill wing” in the inner courtyard behind the hotel, will allow more of the buildings to be brought back into use.
Planning officials have recommended that the scheme be approved by the planning committee when it meets next week. The Twentieth century Society has objected to the scheme, saying that “these proposals would cause substantial and unjustified harm to the significance of the designated heritage asset”. But Historic England has raised no objections, saying the plan would “enhance the variety of the streetscape”.
In a report to councillors, planning officers said: “The Interim Head of Planning considers that the contemporary roof top extensions are well designed and will enhance the variety of the streetscape. Their contemporary form allows the new extensions to be clearly identifiable as modern, whilst the historic development of the school building itself would remain readable. There will be a minor level of harm to the setting of the listed buildings which is justified by the securing the restoration and refurbishment of the buildings and an appropriate economic re-use.”
The Hope Street Hotel first opened in 2003. From 2007 to 2009 it was renovated and extended into the former police station building next door.
www.hopestreethotel.co.uk</p
