Council refuses hotel plan for derelict former pub in Leigh

The Ship, in Leigh-on-Sea, has been boarded up since it closed in 2017

Fresh plans to transform a derelict pub into a hotel have been refused by a city council.

The East Anglia Pub Company had applied to turn The Ship, in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, into a 15-bedroom hotel.

The venue in New Road closed in 2017 and planning permission has been granted for its renovation in 2019, but it expired.

The city council has blocked the latest bid after it ruled "irreversible harm" would be done to the building.

The authority said first-floor balconies included in the blueprints would be damaging to the pub's historical features and added "[they] would be an awkward and incongruous addition".

A taxi drop-off point and seven parking spaces were planned for the front of the hotel if it was approved and built.

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Carole Mulroney, Liberal Democrat councillor for Leigh, urged the applicant to meet with planning officers at Southend-on-Sea City Council to find a solution.

"I want to see The Ship open again and running as a viable business, but it is an historic building so we have to pay respect to that fact - we don't want to ruin its character," she said.

"It is an old building which has seen better days and we want it back; we need this sort of facility in Leigh."

Ms Mulroney said the concerns about the balconies were a "hurdle that came late in the day".