Artist's impression of proposed Premier Inn (From St Albans & Harpenden Review)

Planning should not be approved without any on site parking. This is the developer taking the ****. There is ample room for underground and even ground floor parking.

The planning application is now on the District Council website/planning portal, ref. 5/2011/1805.

If the artist's impressions are anything like realistic it looks awful, a large and very prominent 5-storey slab with no apparent architectural merit which will dominate everything around and opposite.

Should the Council approve an application for a 125 bedroom hotel + public space + fitness gym with memberships to be sold to non residents with nil on site parking?

The developers make their case for guests and gym users arriving by public transport or on foot and those who have to travel by car will be able to use the nearby multi-storey in Russell Avenue which they claim is often under capacity. Sounds a bit fanciful.

This will tick most of the Council's boxes incl. creation of 83 jobs (75% part time). Low skilled min. wage.

I see the conservation officers (are there any still in the building?) pulling the application to bits and the councillors waving it in with almost indecent haste. Jobs + something happening north end of town = votes = can't refuse.

Fat Bob's analyis or rather prediction is correct. There will be uproar from the car lobby. The Greens will be placatory, and have already started.

He's not altogether right about the Conservation Team. Its obvious they've had an input, but with disastrous conesequences. Until the D&A statement is published, the history of their involvement remains a local authority secret. The Review should investigate this, and I'm doing so today with a visit to the Civic Centre.

I'm sure, given half a chance, the architect could have done better.

Where's Vanessa when she's needed? Too *****ed out after late night excitement in the Council Chamber?

the D&E statement from Walsingham Planning) is now on the website. It's zero informative on design issues.

There maybe info buried elsewhere.

If not, its a scandalous.

If it was a single plot or a small extension, they'd throw the book at you if you didn't reveal all.

But these big schemes are all done behind closed doors.

Bob's right. They held a silly late night session just to divert vanessa's attention.

Ah so that is what Monday was a diversion?! However you never know who you are going to meeting in the chamber! :)

My views on this scheme remain the same as I commented the other day. Is that enough to keep you boys happy?

I'm going to take a guess that Fatbob, Vanessa and Busbee all have fairly good jobs, or are wealthy enough not to have to work, and instead sit on the internet all day..

I totally understand that all 3 of you want to see the 'heritage' of St.Albans kept, but I honestly do not see how objecting to this hotel will help anyone.

The people of St.Albans need jobs.

The people of St.Albans need tourism.

The people of St.Albans need shops.

It seems that whenever there is a plan to build/change/knock down something in St.Albans the 'moany brigade' start...

It was the swimming pool not so long ago. Everyone moaning that the pool was going to cost to much, looked wrong, was too small etc...

What would you prefer? Crumbling facilities for the residents just so we don't spend money or change anything?

We younger people want to see new facilities, we want to get jobs, we want more people visiting our area to help the area prosper..

What's worse? Rows of abandoned and closed shops or a new building bringing money into the city?

As for the no parking argument, so what! In a lot of major cities, this is the norm for a lot of hotels not to offer parking so I cannot see this being a problem, after all visitors will know they are in an ancient roman town and will understand.

I can't say I think that the hotel design looks great or ugly, but it is certainly a lot better looking that a boarded up Mcdonalds with litter and dirt building up.

I do not pretend to know what happens behind closed doors at the council offices, wether 'special deals' are being made with developers etc, but I do know that the town centre desperately needs some life bringing into it if we ALL want St.Albans to succeed as a place for locals and tourists.

Mr Taxpayer hopefully understands he is not alone in paying taxes? He can speculate all he wants about my personal circumstances. Whether that aids his argument is for him to assess.

I am not against city centre hotels, far from it. However I question the size, position and lack of architectural merit in this proposed development; which sadly flows from a lack of a master plan for our city centre.

To answer his 3 questions I refer him to a recent report by English Heritage entitled ‘Heritage Counts', which explored the economic impact of investment in the historic environment. I quote salient points below;

“£1 of investment in the historic environment generates £1.6 of additional economic activity over a ten year period.

Investment in the historic environment attracts businesses, one in four businesses’ agree that the historic environment is an important factor in deciding where to locate, the same as for road access.

Investing in the historic environment brings more visitors to local areas and encourages them to spend more, approximately one in five visitors to areas which have had historic environment investment spend more in the local area than before, and one in four businesses has seen the number of customers increase.

Historic environment attractions generates local wealth. Half of all jobs created by historic environment attractions are in local businesses.”

Therefore I suggest any development must enhance the heritage offer, otherwise you are killing the goose etc. Or to paraphrase another old saying, develop for a quick supposedly economic win, the whole city will have to repent at leisure.

I agree with the idea that the scheme should proceed. However I strongly disapprove of the design of the link block between the retained frontage and the standard 'INN' style at the rear. There should be a proper design statement giving the reasons why ths block was altered - planner's whim I suspect. I'm sure the architect could have done a better job if given a free hand at designing a link block. Personally I think the decision to retain the frontage is fatally flawed. It should have been demolished or the block kept and the extra floor area gained by extending the height elsewhere on the site. We should have been told the design analysis behing this scheme and the input of the planners disclosed.