
New plans have gone in for apartments and houses at a former hotel in Morecambe after the council turned down the original scheme.
A new planning application at the former Park Hotel on Regent Road is for 14 new apartments and six houses.
The original plans were for 17 apartments and six houses at the site of the former pub and hotel in the West End, which has been closed for a number of years.
The applicant Alexander Matthews Stays Ltd has asked for permission for a "change of use and conversion of former hotel to create 14 apartments, including demolition of rear extensions, erection of a four storey extension and a single storey extension to the side, installation of solar panels to rear roof slope, creation of a garden area, car park and bin store and erection of six dwellings on land to the rear".
Lancaster City Council refused the initial application in September 2024.
A council said at the time that "the proposal will result in an unacceptable and poor standard of accommodation for all basement apartments proposed, due to deficient outlook and poor levels of natural light to all habitable rooms to basement apartments, beneath minimum standards and to the detriment of their amenity".
"The unsympathetic location of a bin/cycle store adjacent to basement apartments and those with extant planning permission in a neighbouring site causes further harm to residential amenity standards.
"The proposed clear glazed windows within the southeast facing elevation would be positioned approximately 6.5 metres away from the neighbouring properties of no. 92 and 93 Regent Road to the southeast, with clear glazed windows to this neighbouring property as existing and further within an extant permission. This is significantly short of the 21 metres minimum standard, exacerbated by the elevated position of the proposed windows facing over opposing neighbouring windows, resulting in an unacceptable overlooking impact.
"The application site is primarily within an area that is at high risk of groundwater flooding, with smaller areas of medium groundwater flooding within the site, and there is a projected future tidal flood risk from climate change over the next 100 years at this site."
A report by Alexander Matthews Stays Ltd, submitted with the new plans, said: "Following the refusal of the application, a pre-application enquiry was submitted to the council which sought to address the reasons for refusal and to provide solutions to each of those three reasons.
"A site meeting between the client, case officer and the design team took place on October 22 2024 and after sending through a series of layout drawings showing how these design changes have been implemented, we now understand that the issues have been fully resolved."
The report says that a "revised layout provides many advantages including, but not limited to Improved amenity and outlook from all living accommodation at ground floor level, improved external amenity space for each maisonette, including exclusive use of outdoor patio space at the front of each unit, and access to the communal garden to the rear, introduction of a communal gym for all residents and plant room area, cycle storage relocated to an internal, secure cycle storage area at lower ground floor level for all building residents, removal and blocking up of four existing windows overlooking the alleyway into the neighbouring property, removal of three lightwells from the previous application in the alleyway, redesign to the internal layouts at all levels to eliminate the issues of overlooking and loss of privacy into the neighbouring property.
"Essentially, living areas and where possible all bedrooms have been laid out to face either the front or rear of the property.
The report also says there has been "relocation of bin storage to a fully enclosed, dedicated bin storage area accessed from the car park area".
It also says that "the updated Strategic Flood Risk Assessment for Lancaster...published recently in January 2025...confirms that the site is within an area that has no risk of groundwater flooding."
The report concludes "All of the previous reasons for refusal have been addressed and the application should therefore be fully supported by the local authority."
A heritage statement submitted with the plans said: "The hotel will have enjoyed a period of prosperity during the first half of the 20th century given th fashions for seaside holidaying during the era, however the availability of affordable air travel and the increase in popularity of holidaying abroad brought about the decline of seaside holiday resort towns.
"The decline began in the 1970s and the hotel suffered reduced visitor numbers and intermittent disuse since.
"In recent years the building has stood vacant amid attempts at partial re-opening and re-use as an ad-hoc paranormal visitor attraction but is now functionally obsolete and suffering from the onset of dilapidation."
The plans and supporting information are publicly available at the Lancaster City Council website planning section, reference number 25/00116/FUL.
Lancaster City Council will make a decision on whether to grant planning permission, in due course.