Driftwood Inn plans for seven apartments
Half of the Driftwood Inn could be converted into residential apartments, if planning permission is granted.
A planning application shows that the western part of the building at Perelle would remain as a hotel, with 10 hotel bedrooms and two suites upstairs, and kitchen, bistro and bar downstairs.
But the eastern side would have four two-bed apartments downstairs and three two-bed apartments upstairs.
The plans show there are currently 22 bedrooms and a staff area upstairs, although the hotel's website states there are 15 tourist bedrooms. Downstairs there is currently a lounge bar, bistro, residents’ lounge and staff rooms.
In the application, agent James Le Gallez said the hotel needed investment.
‘The applicant wants to achieve a new and improved hotel with market-informed quality and choice of facilities with no loss to bed stock and the same boarding permit capacity as the existing,’ he said.
‘The outcome of the new visitor accommodation would support the future viability and growth of the industry with no direct loss.’
However, it has been hard to get financing for the work, which led to the current mixed-use development proposal.
‘That current structure is too large and uneconomical for its current purposes, but it can accommodate the new hotel in its western parts,’ Mr Le Gallez states.
‘That would leave the remaining eastern parts and where that remainder can be put to good use as conversion to seven local market flats. That local market use offers more accessible capital release to fund the development as a whole, and with no loss to tourism.’
There would be eight parking spaces for the new flats created at the side of the property.
There are separate staff quarters at the rear of the site.
Mr Le Gallez stated that there was an alternative to close the hotel and then seek planning permission once the site was considered redundant. ‘But that is not the option that we wish to follow.’
The establishment currently markets itself as a four-star bistro and bar with rooms.
A garden double bedroom next weekend would cost £95 for a night.
The hotel was previously known at Perelle Bay Hotel, and before that it was the L’Atlantique. It opened under its current name in 2017.
The plans can be viewed here.
