Preston's Park Hotel to welcome guests for first time in 70 years

The hotel will be restored after spending years vacant

A historic hotel in Preston will welcome guests again for the first time in 70 years.

The Park Hotel is set to become a 65-room "apart-hotel".

It had been used as offices for Lancashire County Council but has been vacant since 2011.

The city's planning committee described the redevelopment of the building - originally opened as the Railway Station Hotel in 1883- as a "huge plus".

On the same site as the hotel, which overlooks Miller Park, there will be two apartment blocks with over 300 homes in them.

A nearby property - number 8 East Cliff, which is a Grade II listed building - will be converted into a six apartments.

Apartments will also be built on the site in the city

Tom Flanagan, the agent for the scheme - brought forward by The Heaton Group - told a meeting of Preston City Council's planning committee that the proposal would "provide significant public benefits, not least the restoration and re-use of the Park Hotel and number 8 East Cliff to their original uses".

The apartment blocks - one containing 193 apartments and the other 128 - have been amended from their original design after Historic England raised concerns over their potential impact on the hotel and Miller Park.

An earlier plan for a pavilion has now been scrapped.

Under the current plans, the site would be opened to the public and a "stepped access" down into Miller Park would be restored, the Local Democracy Reporting Service reports.

The hotel will also feature a flexible working space, a gym and a cafe or restaurant

A flexible working space and a gym within the hotel building would be reserved for the use of guests, a cafe or restaurant on the ground floor would be open to the public.

The plans drew a largely enthusiastic response from Preston City Council's planning committee and were unanimously approved.

Deputy committee chair David Borrow said: "To see the Park Hotel open again, so we have two hotels at the station [and] County Hall end of the city centre is a huge plus."

Councillor Jennifer Mein said she was disappointed that "badly-needed" conference facilities were not now included in the plans.