Blackpool Council plan to turn post office into hotel granted £8m

The Abingdon Street building has been empty since 2007

A £26m scheme to convert a Grade II-listed former post office into a hotel has secured £8m of levelling up funds.

Blackpool Council will spend the money on the Abingdon Street plans, which will see a 144-room hotel created.

It is the third time the Labour-led council has bid for government funding for the scheme, having been turned down in November 2021 and January 2023.

However, some levelling up projects which were previously passed over were granted funds in Wednesday's budget.

The chancellor used his spring statement to share about £200m of unallocated funding among a number of levelling up projects and the Blackpool project was one of 16 to secure grants.

• What is levelling up and who is it helping?

A Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities representative said as the money had to be spent in the coming financial year, it had decided "to award funding to bids on the Levelling Up Fund round 2 shortlist, because this contains a pipeline of rigorously assessed bids which have been judged as value for money and deliverable".

MP Paul Maynard said the government had "put its faith in Blackpool and the town's regeneration vision"

Developer Ashall Projects has planning permission to convert the former post office, which closed in 2007, into a hotel.

The scheme includes a four and five-storey link extension with roof top terraces between the former post office and sorting office, a three-storey rear extension and internal and external alterations to both buildings, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Blackpool North and Cleveleys's Conservative MP Paul Maynard said the money would help "breathe new life" into the centre.

He said the government had "put its faith in Blackpool and the town's regeneration vision".

"This funding unlocks another key scheme, one which builds on the town's heritage and which will breath new life into an important town centre location," he added.