Hotel extension granted amid parking wrangle

Premier Inn have been granted permission to build and extension, which the company says is needed to meet demand, at the Brecks hotel.

That will mean losing 15 parking bays, however, sparking concern from those who run the Janet Mitchell Dance School, which operates from the basement of the Sainsbury’s store nearby.

The problem surrounds the fact that historically the hotel, a pub, snooker club and dance school shared two car parks.

But recently, Premier Inn stepped away from that arrangement, imposing a parking charge on their own car park for customers.

When they made the application to create 14 new bedrooms, council staff questioned whether parking arrangements were adequate and the company organised a three day survey, which suggested they were.

But that was based on Premier Inn’s customers using its own car park, and customers of Sainsbury’s, the dance school and snooker club sticking to the 18 spaces they were allocated.

Felicity Thompson, who runs the school set up by Janet Mitchell, told the meeting: “Car parking has always been a challenge but just about manageable.

“The loss of space, and addition of bedrooms, will take it from manageable to impossible.”

Council officials were questioned on whether the three day parking survey was long enough, and Cllr Simon Currie said he would abstain from the vote because he did not think it was adequate.

But council staff insisted such work was “trustworthy” and demonstrated that Premier Inn had sufficient space to meet the parking demands from their own customers.

Councillors were told by their staff: “This is an application from a private business for private land.

“You cannot grant someone else the right to park on someone else’s land.

“In a perfect world, it would be shared.”

However, they were told that while Premier Inn could accommodate its own customers, the others could not.

Parking on side streets in the area was also checked, with 80 per cent of that attributed to residents or visitors, with only 20 per cent put down to those using any of the businesses.