Have you spotted all the new hotels being built in Blackpool? Some of them are finished – others underway. You’ll find them all over the resort. A LOT of investment is going into the next generation of accommodation.
Numerous unfit buildings have gone, demolished to make way for new builds. All in all, the stock of holiday accommodation in the resort is undergoing a transformation!
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New Hotels being Built in Central Blackpool
Central, North and South, there are new builds and serious renovations going on all over town. Take a look –
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Premier Inn at the site of Yates Wine Lodge
Owners Whitbread opened the new 150-bedroom Premier Inn Blackpool North Pier in early 2021. It includes a Cookhouse family restaurant and pub on the ground floor. Accommodating more than 200 people, the restaurant is open to hotel residents and the public, from 6.30am.
Visit Fylde Coast recorded the building work for our YouTube channel. Here’s one of many videos of the site, made in October 2020 when the scaffolding had come down with the exterior finished –
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What happened to Yates’s Wine Lodge?
At 3.15am on the morning of 15 February 2009, the alarm went up as the historic Yates’s wine bar at Clifton Street became engulfed in flames. The wine bar had only recently reopened after £500,000 of refurbishment work.
Believed to have begun in the neighbouring pet shop, the fire spread through the upper floors into Yate’s. A 21-year-old man confessed to burning down the building. But the case against him collapsed, after scientific evidence proved he couldn’t have been responsible.
Although the seaward facing rotunda on the building was more than 100 years old, it had to come down, along with the burnt out building.
The arsonist also destroyed the Bosley Shopping Arcade and the old Tivoli Pet Shop – by then called Blackpool Aquaria and Pet Supplies – with all its animals. The Wildcats Lap Dancing Club and a Subway sandwich shop also went up in the blaze. At least £20 million of damage was caused, and the last of the building was demolished in April 2009.
Various plans followed, including a plan in 2013 to create an art deco style, mixed use retail and leisure complex. Sadly, the economic climate of the country stalled its redevelopment, until 2019 when work began on the Premier Inn.
Part of Blackpool’s History
What we now know as Yates’s Wine Lodge was just the second bar to be opened by Peter Yates. He opened his first bar was in Oldham in 1884 with his brother, Simon. Here in Blackpool he first took over Liston’s Bar, behind the Talbot Dining Rooms in 1894 to open a small shop and wine bar on the Talbot Road side. He soon built a butchers, cigar rolling shop and Bosley Grill Restaurant downstairs. On 8 April 1896 he bought the Theatre Royal (below) so he now acquired the whole of the Talbot Dining Rooms building. This Yates’s Wine Lodge was probably the company’s largest.
Yates’s became famous for its ‘Champagne on Draught’ at 10p per glass. Queues formed around the corner site before opening time, with three retired policemen manning the doors to control them!
Did you know? It was known locally as ‘The Blob Shop’ after a cocktail of wine, brandy, sugar, lemon and hot water.
Like most commercial buildings it saw various changes across the decades, with a full restoration in 1994 for its own Centenary. It was later refurbished in early 2009 but then burnt to the ground on 15 February 2009.
Renovation of the Clifton Hotel
The former Clifton Hotel, once the Ibis (among others) and now called Forshaws opposite North Pier, has undergone a £400,000 facelift. Although listed status had been granted to the historic property in 1974, concern had been growing about the neglected state of it. It’s also such a prominent site, next to Blackpool Town Hall at Talbot Square, in the Heritage Quarter of Blackpool.
The 90 bedroom hotel saw repairs to the damaged facade and structure and significant areas of re-rendering. Along with roof repairs and replacement, and new drainage now installed. Timber, brickwork and pointing was all repaired and renewed and the project finished with full external redecoration.
Built in 1865, the Clifton Hotel is part of the towns heritage and we’re sure you’ll agree it looks splendid now.
Holiday Inn at Talbot Road
At Talbot Gateway, the new tram terminus development is well underway, scheduled to complete in 2023. It also includes a new Holiday Inn hotel.
In October 2020 hotel management company RBH and Marco Pierre White’s restaurant signed to the Talbot Gateway development. The Holiday Inn will have 144 bedrooms as well as Marco’s New York Italian restaurant. It will create up to 50 new full time equivalent jobs.
Sands Resort Hotel
The old Sands Venue at the seafront is now completely brand new and redeveloped. It’s going to be the luxurious new Sands Resort Hotel and entertainment venue at Central Promenade. We’re still waiting for updates about when it will open.
New Hotels being Built at Blackpool South Shore
Boulevard Hotel
This luxurious new hotel occupies the site of the former Star Pub at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. The stylish new Boulevard Hotel opened for business on 18 December 2019.
The 120 bedroom hotel occupies the south westerly facing corner of the promenade, not far from the Big Blue Hotel. The £12m development includes eight junior suites, two park view suites and eight coastal suites. All have either coastal vistas or direct views of the attractions and rollercoasters.
The Changing Face of South Shore
Improvement works were badly needed at New South Promenade. By 2015 the once prosperous, desirable area was looking almost derelict. It didn’t make a good impression on people arriving in the town.
But in late 2016 work began to deliver the transformation of Blackpool South Shore. Derelict hotels were demolished. The regeneration of neglected care-home property into private homes began. The area began to improve – although there’s always more work to do.
Demolition and Rebuilding
The first crescent beyond the Pleasure Beach is lined with holiday accommodation. It’s separated from New South Promenade by gardens. This image from Google maps is from December 2016 –
By the end of 2016, the Palm Beach and it’s neighbour the Bourne Hotel were really derelict, even burnt-out. Eventually demolished, they made way for a brand new development.
We caught a little bit of the demolition of the two buildings in December 2016. The neighbouring Warwick Hotel (below) was also demolished at the same time.
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In November 2020 we took another walk along New South Promenade, and the difference was quite marked. The private apartments were progressing really well too – see them in this video –
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Hampton by Hilton Hotel
The cleared site was for the new, £8.5m, 130-bedroomed ‘Hampton by Hilton’ hotel. It opened in summer 2018. It was the first of Blackpool’s next generation hotels.
It’s adding an extension with another 74 bedrooms to meet growing demand. The extension is on the adjoining plot of land, used as a temporary car park for the past couple of years. During lockdown in the early part of 2020, the hotel provided accommodation for key workers.
Still to Begin – other Hotels Being Built in Blackpool
Conference Centre Hotel
Meanwhile, at Leopold Grove in the town centre, another new hotel is also on the cards. The new Winter Gardens Hotel, opposite the entrance to the new Conference Centre, is still to begin. Blackpool Council has approved the plans, but a start date hasn’t been announced just yet.
As the hotel will be built on the site of Adelaide Street car park, you might be wondering where all those cars are going to park. The 160 bedroom hotel includes a double level car park with 94 spaces for hotel guests.
Regeneration of the Post Office Site
The old Post Office on Abingdon Street has been closed a long time. This attractive building, next door to Abingdon Street Market, is going be preserved and transformed. Plans are underway to develop it into a 102 bedroom hotel.
The plan for the Grade II listed building also includes shops, a bar and restaurant, plus a roof terrace. The rear service yard is to be converted into a 46-space car park. The front of the Post Office building has eight cast iron telephone boxes. Also Grade II listed, they’ll be restored and kept in place.
This is the third proposal for the site. Previous schemes included a smaller hotel and a shopping outlet called the Red Box Quarter.
Ambassador Hotel, Promenade/Derby Road
After closing in 2013, the Ambassador Hotel at North Shore had been the victim of arson, vandals, squatters and all manner of anti-social behaviour. After spending two years slogging through the planning system, the current site owner finally got permission in May 2020 to convert it into 17 Luxury flats.
However, the amount of damage was too much for the structure. Now unsafe, it had to be demolished before it fell down. Demolition began under an emergency order on 23 November 2020. We went to take a look a couple of days into the demolition –
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In 2022, planners gave their approval to owner Ged O’Mahoney of Go Developments to go ahead with his plans to create a new luxury £4m development on the site. Work will begin in early 2023 with the aim of launching in Spring 2024.
The seven story block will include 26 luxury, five star serviced holiday apartments. All the flats will have a main outlook onto the promenade or Derby Road and three of them will also enjoy private roof terraces.
Easy Hotel, at South Promenade
Another of the new hotels being built in Blackpool was started at South Shore. On a previously vacant plot of land, opposite Waterloo Headland an ‘EasyHotel’ was going to be built. Built and operated by the ‘EasyJet’ group and billed as ‘no frills’ accommodation, run in a similar way to the no-frills flights.
The company acquired a 999-year lease on the plot close to South Pier in late 2018, with a view to developing the budget hotel. Even though it’s a budget hotel, the project cost was more than £7m.
By early 2019, construction of the 104-bedroom hotel was underway, to include restaurants or cafes on the ground floor. It was due to open in the latter half of 2020 but work stalled with the coronavirus crisis. All the building equipment disappeared, leaving the site empty and abandoned ever since. Do you know what’s going to become of it?
And Old Hotels Falling Down…!
New Hacketts Hotel, Promenade/King Edward Avenue
Well, April 2023 turned out to be an eventful month, when a devastating fire ripped through Hacketts Hotel Blackpool. Now raised to the ground, here’s a look at what happened – and this hotels past.
Residential Redevelopment
Some of the surplus holiday accommodation in Blackpool is being turned into private residential living. You might have noticed some very attractive blocks of new private apartments as you’ve travelled around. They’re most noticeable at the promenade at North Shore, where redundant hotels are now desirable sea-front apartments.
The southernmost crescent on Blackpool New South Promenade beyond the Solaris Centre is undergoing much needed redevelopment.
The former care home on the corner of Harrow Place is undergoing regeneration into residential apartments. Residents were moved out of the Abbeydale Care Home on 5 June 2013, after which it closed. After a number of false starts, it’s redevelopment is now almost complete. New photo to come.
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A Really Nice Place
It’s really good news that all of this redevelopment work is taking shape, all over the town.
New South Promenade is a major gateway into Blackpool. It’s one of the first things that motorists see when they approach town. To coin an American expression – it’s also a valuable area of real estate.
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Fronted by stunning public realm it’s surely got to be one of the most desirable seaside locations in the UK. A wide highway, relatively new promenade and sea defences, a beautiful beach with miles of golden sand, and of course the most stunning sunsets.
Although now lapsed, Blackpool South was also the first beach in Blackpool to secure the prestigious Blue Flag for high quality beach and bathing waters.
Back to the Golden Days of the UK Seaside Holiday
Back in the golden days of the British seaside holiday, before foreign holidays became popular, many people took a traditional full week break. Blackpool was incredibly popular, with many millions of visitors holidaying here each year.
Huge hotels lined the crescents of south shore and the Cliffs at the North. Each one offered a good quality of accommodation for which you had to book long in advance. They all ran at high occupancy rates, all through the year. It really was the golden age of the UK seaside holiday.
Then the world started to change. People started to go abroad on holiday and visitor numbers started to fall in all UK resorts. Then people began to take more short breaks, spread throughout the year. All these changes in how we holiday as a nation have taken their toll on seaside hotels. Not just in Blackpool, but all over the UK.
Now, things are changing again. People are generally more aware of their carbon footprint and whether they are flying too much. We don’t want the stress of airports and delays. General concerns about terrorism and contracting viruses make people less inclined to fly to foreign climes.
The 2020 coronavirus pandemic was the icing on the cake. With the threat of self isolation hanging over the return from every foreign holiday, more people enjoyed their staycation. And rediscovering the joy of exploring places on the doorstep. Now, in 2022, the cost of living crisis is biting hard. All in all, people are turning back to UK destinations, and Blackpool is welcoming travellers with open arms!
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It is wonderful to see the regeneration of the seaside towns. I am not a Blackpool fan, more a Morecambe fan . Agree the hens and stags have done nothing for the seaside towns, but those with accommodation needed to earn a living somehow. I hope when we have control of the pandemic and due to Brexit and green thinking our seaside towns will come alive again.
I do not have a problem with the building of new hotels, but it was not that long ago Blackpool Council announced that for every new bed it will dispose an old one. Well that has not happened, Covid 19 will have a bigger impact on that. Plus it would appear the Council wish to have only brand names in the town for accommodation forgetting the many privately owned hotels and B&B’s that have worked hard over the years to accommodate the visitors, now to be tossed aside and forgotten about. I think it was the Sands venue that wanted the frontage to be black, no said Blackpool Council it’s not in keeping, yet the Council owned Art B&B their frontage yes you guessed it, black.
I am sorry to say I do not like the changes that have been and still being done to ALL of the BLACKPOOL coast line. They are building hotels at every corner and space that they can find and are forgetting that people have cars to get them to places they would like and want to visit and stay. But the delvelepers as well as the council are forgetting that these hotels NEED car parks to park their cars and not worry about traffic wardens coming and booking them.
Plus I also think that all the hotels are spoiling the coast line as people use to enjoy just walking and even sitting the coast line and not worry about other people going passed them. In a while all these delvelopers will try and charge people for walking down the coast line and even go on the beach. But this is what all councils are trying to do they are forgetting that here in the North West is not in any way shape or form the South of England . We are the Northern Part of England and should be proud of it.
Is there a reason a lot of hotels on New South Promenade are currently up for sale? I would have thought with all the regeneration, this would be good for business?
The last time we stayed in Blackpool stag parties and hen parties did not help i am told you are trying to minimise this is this true its something you need to do to attract families back
Hi Mel, we’d be interested to know when you last stayed? Stag and hens do visit Blackpool, like every other town in the UK. There’s easily enough to attract families though – stags and hens certainly don’t dominate the town any longer.
I would like hotels to have full board as well as free car parking as my family have disabled people as well as elderly people. And to have a hotel with both of those things which i have mentioned above would be a great help. I also think that you should also include hotels with all of those features above in the North part of Blackpool as some people prefer to stay up in the Northern part of Blackpool. We use to stay there many years ago and enjoyed it very much.
Most hotels, certainly the larger ones, have a restaurant which is open during the day to guests and non residents alike. As for free car parking, well that’s a pot-luck thing depending on where you stay I’m afraid.