Blight on the skyline: protesters blast plans to replace 'eyesore' hotel with bigger one
A furious row has broken out over plans to demolish one of London’s biggest hotels and build in its place an even larger building with two towers.
More than 200 objections have already been lodged with Kensington and Chelsea council from angry residents after a planning application to knock down the Kensington Forum hotel was filed last month.
The vast 906-room brutalist “eyesore” landmark on Cromwell Road — said to be London’s fifth biggest hotel — would be replaced with a new hotel with 749 bedrooms, 340 serviced apartments, restaurants and a conference centre.
There would also be 46 homes for sale and rent and the total development would be 50 per cent bigger than the current hotel.
It would have two towers of 29 storeys and 22 storeys, as well as a lower-rise building, spread over a two-acre site near Gloucester Road Tube station.
Planning documents submitted with the council show that 20 of the 46 apartments will be designated affordable and the developers will also restore the gardens in Ashburn Gardens Square that were largely lost when the original hotel was built.
Jonathan Manns, head of planning at Rockwell, the property developer lined up to build the new hotel for Queensgate Investments, said: “Designed by award-winning architects, this scheme will transform a functionally obsolete building and recognised local eyesore into a world-class hotel-led development. We’ve worked closely with the community to propose a new building which will significantly improve the appearance of the site and the amenities it provides.
“The proposal also introduces new market and affordable homes, stepping height away from nearby residential properties and reintroducing the historic garden square which is much desired by the local community.”
However residents say the development, which they claim would be nine metres taller than the existing hotel, plus years of disruption will have a “disastrous impact” on local property prices and blight their lives.
Inessa Airey, who lives in the shadow of the existing hotel, wrote in her objection: “I do not hear of anyone in favour of the development work or the dreadful result. Residents should not suffer for the sake of vast commercial profit.”
One unnamed objector added: “This is a massive project and an even more ugly and huge blight on the skyline than the existing building.”
A meeting of 150 residents earlier this week overwhelmingly opposed the scheme.
High-rise buildings are a particularly sensitive issue in the borough since last year’s Grenfell Tower disaster, and a planned redevelopment of the Newcombe House block on Notting Hill Gate has also drawn bitter opposition.
The hotel, owned by property company Queensgate Investment, was designed by Centre Point architect Richard Seifert.
A previous rejected design had envisaged a 2,000-room hotel that would have been the biggest in the world.
Property developers Rockwell, lined up to build the new hotel over three and a half years, say it will transform a “recognised local eyesore” into a “world-class” scheme.