'Eyesore' Suffolk seafront hotel for sale for £2million
The Marlborough Hotel has been put on the market through Rightmove for £2m - Credit: RICHARD CORNWELL
An "eyesore" Suffolk seafront hotel that has stood closed and boarded up for years has been put up for sale for £2million, sparking hopes the building can be revived.
An advert for the site of the former Marlborough Hotel in Felixstowe has been placed on the property website Rightmove, raising the prospect a solution could be found for the 49-bedroom premises, which used to be popular with holidaymakers, organisations and business people.
The venue boasted a much-used restaurant and the much-loved Flying Boat Bar, but is now an empty blot on the landscape with wooden boards covering the windows amid fears the structure could start crumbling soon unless a new future can be found for it.
The boarded-up hotel has been described as a 'blot on the seafront.' - Credit: RICHARD CORNWELL
Planning permission had been granted to turn the property in Sea Road into a 14-bed boutique hotel with a restaurant and shop on the ground floor and the frontage restored to its former glory.
An additional 17 new apartments would have been created, with further permission for nine apartments behind the building.
However, the time limit for the start of development has since expired.
Owner Sudeep Singh had sought the changes because he said the hotel was no longer viable due to low room occupancy, a 75% rise in business rates in recent years and other bills increasing.
Felixstowe town councillor Doreen Savage wants a hotel to be retained at the site. - Credit: Archant
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Felixstowe town councillor Doreen Savage, who represents Coastal ward which covers the hotel, said the hotel was a "blot on the seafront as it is".
Her main concern with the existing plans was that there was a lack of parking, but she said: “I can’t see how it can’t be viable as a hotel because with tourism on the up, hotel accommodation, one would have thought, would be increased.”
Felixstowe town councillor Mike Deacon does not want the empty hotel to become a 'blot on the landscape.' - Credit: Archant
Her fellow town councillor Mike Deacon said: "I liked the plans as they were originally drawn up as the building was to be sympathetically restored and would retain an element of resort activities in the form of a boutique hotel. It would also have provided additional residential accommodation.
"The re-development of this former hotel would be very welcome. We certainly don’t want a repeat of the situation where another of our seafront hotels was allowed to fall into such disrepair it became a real ‘blot on the landscape’ for many years before the site was eventually re-developed.”
The owners of the Marlborough Hotel could not be contacted.
