There are currently no more plans for any future hotel developments in Derry, it has emerged.
The news was revealed during a meeting of Derry City and Strabane District Council’s Planning Committee, at which approval was given for a new 24-bedroom boutique hotel in Foyle Street.
It had been hoped the vacant Austins building in the city’s Diamond area would have been converted to an hotel sooner in the near future.
The new hotel will also include a bar/restaurant area and an Italian restaurant, and require the refurbishment and extension of the buildings at 1-4 Shipquay Place and 7-17 Foyle Street (pictured)..
The new development will not include including the corner buildings of the Gainsborough Bar or the former Madden’s tobacconist buildings.
It will mark the latest ‘boutique hotel’ set to open in the city, following the recent opening of the 31-bedroom Bishop’s Gate Hotel in Bishop Street, while work is currently underway on transforming a former bank building in Shipquay Street into a 20-bed hotel.
Prior to and throughout 2013, a number of new hotels were planned for the city centre.
These include a 62 bedroom, seven floor hotel with a rooftop garden planned for William Street and a new 116-room Holiday Inn Express planned by the Brendan Duddy Group at the former site of on the complex once occupied by the Strand Bar and Flamin’ Jacks restaurant.
Planning permission was also issued for a 139-bedroom hotel at the former Tillie and Henderson factory site, however, none of the above proposals have to date come to fruition.
A senior planning official has confirmed the Foyle Street development marks the end of the current crop of hotels planned for the city, with no further proposals currently with planners for any more hotels in Derry.
Speaking at the planning committee meeting, Maura Fox, Head of Planning with Derry City and Strabane District Council, said there were ‘no plans for any other hotels in the council area.
Ms Fox was speaking following a question from the Sinn Fein councillor Tony Hassan who said some developers had raised concerns over the length of time it took for an application for a new hotel to go through planning in comparison to Belfast.
He added Derry ‘needed more hotels’.
Responding, Ms Fox said in the run-up to the City of Culture celebrations in 2013, there had been a ‘lot of applications for hotels’, which she said had been ‘dealt with in a timely fashion by planners’.
She added it was ‘good’ that some prominent buildings within the city were ‘up and running again’ as a result of the recent planning approvals for hotels.
Her colleague, Andree McNee, Principal Planning Officer with the council, added ‘she was not aware of any more applications for hotels’ in the city.
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