Controversial plans to build a Premier Inn hotel in Keswick were this morning given the go-ahead by the Lake District National Park Authority despite local opposition, including a 3,000-name on-line protest petition.
The 71-bedroom hotel with restaurant, bar and 30-space car park will be on the site of the former Ravensfield residential home on High Hill.
It will be the first in Keswick to be operated by a national hotel chain.
At a virtual meeting, members of the development control committee voted eight to two in favour of the £6 million three-storey hotel which Keswick Town Council had unanimously opposed because of its size, parking shortage, drainage and flood risk.
Cumbria Tourism and Keswick Tourism Association also objected to the plans.
Cumbria Tourism told planners: “The choice of great independent businesses and lack of national chain is integral to the unique sense of place that that makes somewhere like Keswick so special to visitors.
“There are areas of wider Cumbria where national and international businesses provide significant employment and contribute to the economy of the county but in this instance we cannot see the added benefits such a business would bring.”
Thirty permanent new jobs will be created at the Keswick Premier Inn.
The chain, owned by brewery Whitbread, already has hotels at Penrith and Cockermouth.
