Attempts to withdraw the installation of a pedestrian crossing from the planning conditions for a Premier Inn hotel in Keswick have been dismissed as an insult to the town’s residents.
The hotel giant’s parent company Whitbread controversially won permission last year from the Lake District National Park Authority for a 71-bedroom Premier Inn to go up on the former Ravensfield care home site on High Hill.
The conditions LDNPA planning officers insisted on for the £6 million hotel included installation of a puffin crossing outside after a community-led campaign raised road safety fears.
But the developers are now asking for the plan to go ahead “without compliance of condition seven,” which would mean no puffin crossing – and a saving of around £120,000.
Instead, they offered to make a financial contribution of £7,000, to be used to improve town centre car parking signs.
Councillor Tony Lywood told a recent Keswick Town Council meeting: “An offer of £7,000 for signage is an insult to the town council and to the people of Keswick.
“They (Premier Inn) must stick to their agreement. A deal is a deal is a deal. They agreed to it. They must honour their agreement – and we need to hold firm, with no other alternatives.”
He said the original Premier Inn plan had been recommended for refusal because of highway safety concerns and had only been approved when a
puffin crossing had been included.
The amount being offered is in excess of the £6,000 that the Keswick transport survey says needs to be spent on signage to encourage motorists to use the town’s less well-used car parks, like in Crosthwaite Road and near the pencil factory, close to where the hotel will be built.
But Paul Titley, Keswick’s mayor, warned that if the town council agreed to the requested change and accepted the offer of money for signage, it would indicate that it did not believe the puffin crossing was necessary.
“That is a very dangerous position for us to be in,” he added.
Coun David Burn countered that the proposed site was not an appropriate place for a puffin crossing and that it would clog up Tithebarn Road roundabout, where traffic tailed back to Borrowdale Road.
However, he said the change would allow Premier Inn to “wriggle out” of its commitment.
Councillors agreed to “strongly resist” the withdrawal of the puffin crossing in their recommendation to the LDNPA.
