COUNCILLORS are opposing plans to turn a landmark hotel – last used as a temporary home for flood victims –into two homes.
The Lea Manor Hotel is on a prominent site alongside the Shifnal to Wolverhampton road near Albrighton. Lewis Architect Limited is hoping to transform Lea Manor Hotel by demolishing part of the building and changing its use in to living accommodation. The site was originally Lea Farm, a residential building associated with chicken farming.
It was last used in 2007 by Bridgnorth District Council to rehouse victims of flooding in Worfield. The little community lived in the hotel for around six months while there homes were dried out and repaired.
Now Albrighton Parish Council has voted against plans to turn the hotel in to two homes. Chairman Paul Lusk said the general view of councillors was that it would set a precedent for building houses in the green belt.
“The council feels it would be better served as a hotel, but now we have to wait and see what Shropshire Council decide,” he said.
The current building has been extended over the years with the adaption of the former outbuildings, used as a petrol station, refurbished to provide additional detached hotel accommodation.
The hotel was said to be struggling to compete in a hard economic environment and – combined with a poor location – it did not succeeded in maintaining commercial levels to sustain itself. The property has been intensively marketed for the last two years with no real success and the proposed plans would look to convert the existing buildings into two residential units.
One unit would be based upon the original main building and the other from a conversion of the detached annex. The proposal seeks to demolish the central 1960s concrete framed hall of the main building to provide a new building plan with a courtyard style arrangement to allow natural daylight into the depth of the building.
Historically the A464 was a very busy rural road linking Wolverhampton with Shifnal and Telford, but the development of the M54–providing faster and more affective access to Shifnal and Telford – has seen the traffic flow degenerate to what amounts to local traffic.
This has lead to a downturn in passing trade for the site. The hotel has operated under various managements over the last 25 years, with the current owner running it for the last 10 years.
The historic mapping of 1882 shows residential use of the site and it is thought the original two storey farm house forms the frontage of the current Lea Manor.