
Closed Newquay landmark to see £20m revival investment
He said: "The question around the apartments and the housing that they're producing here is always the question, are they truly affordable?"Are they in the reach of local people, which is of course what we desperately need here in Newquay."Unveiling the proposals on Monday, construction director Drew Wrintmore said the development would create 100 jobs in the town.He said: "In order to be able to do that, we need to be able to have the engine of the residential development to be able to fund that."Viability, when we eventually get the final design of the scheme, will determine whether or not there is any affordable housing... but the properties will not be priced out of regular market range."
Mr Wrintmore said the money would be put towards the root of the hotel's issues.He said: "High-end hotels in vibrant towns work really, really well, but they need to be done properly. "The hotel itself, the fabric is almost falling apart, especially the roof of it."The investment in it, a lot of it you'll see, but a lot of it you won't see because it will be buried in the fabric of the building."
Resident Linda said it would be a "crying shame" to build new apartments next to the hotel site.She said: "If it keeps its front, as it says on those pictures, then that's fine. "But to build cardboard boxes next door that we can walk down the barrow fields and see, I think is a shame. It's a crying shame."Jenny Jelbert, from the town, said she was "concerned about losing heritage places and overcrowding".Max Pocklington cleaned the windows of the hotel for 20 years before it closed.He said such investment was needed and he was "very happy" with the plans."I think it's going to be very good," he said.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


BBC News
8 minutes ago
- BBC News
Council agree to sell former TK Maxx building in Peterborough
A council said it hoped a former TK Maxx building could be turned into a mixed residential and commercial City Council's cabinet members agreed to sell the Bridge Street building at a meeting on 15 July, as it was "no longer economically viable".It was bought by the local authority for £4.1m in 2020 with the aim of using it for a £15m community hub project known as The Vine.A feasibility commissioned by Tetra Tech in July 2022 said the cost of the necessary works was about £10.8m, making the project no longer viable. A marketing exercise to sell the vacant four-storey building will conclude in the Thulbourn, the council's cabinet member for growth and regeneration, told the meeting on 15 July, "62-68 Bridge Street is a prominent city centre site with development potential currently underutilised". Open to offers Adrian Chapman, the executive director of place and economy at the authority, said: "We should be proud of this site. At the moment it is difficult to be because the building is a slug of a building."I imagine it with something on there which is iconic in style and nature and is a real gateway into our city centre."He added: "This is a really significant site in our city centre and a site that deserves a building upon it which is of some significance, of quality and offers real value to the High Street."It's seen as part of our wider regeneration programme for the city centre."The building will go on the open market and the authority is open to all offers including development Local Democracy Reporting Service said before going out for informal tender the local authority had to pay for marketing fees (£15,000), a development brief (£10,000), surveys (£10,000) and legal fees (£5,000).Following the marketing of the building other costs would include, agent disposal fees (highest of 1.5% of sale price or £40,000), legal fees (highest of 1% of purchase price or £35,000) and a section 123 best consideration valuation – RICS Registered Valuer (£10,000).The council said it would achieve value for money by appointing professional advisers through a national local authority framework. Follow Peterborough news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.


The Guardian
8 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘It's soul-destroying': takeover crisis leaves Morecambe FC on the brink
In the century since it was founded, only a world war has stopped play at Morecambe football club. But the 105-year-old institution is days away from collapse amid the 'unfolding disaster' of a takeover deal. The Shrimps, as they are affectionately known, are the latest victims of lax football governance rules, after similar crises at clubs including Wigan Athletic, Bolton Wanderers, Sheffield Wednesday and Bury FC, one of the oldest in the world. 'It's soul-destroying,' said David Freer, 62, a lifelong fan who has commentated on Morecambe games for 12 years for the Football League. As recently as 2021, the club were holding their own in the third tier of English football – their highest-ever ranking. Morecambe were relegated for the first time in their history in 2023 and then again last season. Now there is a real possibility the club will be banned from playing their first game in the National League, which kicks off in three weeks, and players will be allowed to leave the club for nothing if they are not paid by Friday. 'It is two minutes to midnight and it's just terrifying,' said Freer. The club's playing staff were only paid a third of their wages in June, and school proms, weddings and wakes due to be held at Morecambe's 6,400-capacity Mazuma Stadium were abruptly cancelled. The local food bank and Citizens Advice branch have offered help to employees, while an Indian restaurant fed them all for nothing earlier this month. A whip-round by fans raised £361 for the players, who politely declined the donation, which will instead go to the supporters' group the Shrimps Trust. Joanna Young, the chief executive of Citizens Advice North Lancashire, said: 'We've had contact from people who have been affected by what's happening at the football club, who find themselves in a very difficult financial position. 'Most people budget for what they're expecting to receive. Receiving a third of your wages – that just pitches people into financial crisis.' Lizzi Collinge, the Labour MP for Morecambe and Lunesdale, said she had wept and barely slept over the 'unfolding disaster' at the club. There was a 'very real risk' that the club would cease to exist in a matter of days, she added. Morecambe's takeover drama began in 2023 when the owner, Jason Whittingham's Bond Group Investments, announced it was selling to the London-based investment firm Panjab Warriors, which then loaned £6m to the Shrimps. Two years of financial turmoil followed, with unpaid bills, sackings and resignations. It came to a head last week when Whittingham announced he was selling the club to a mystery third party and not to Panjab Warriors. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion In the Commons last week, Collinge used parliamentary privilege to raise a suspicion that Whittingham is using Morecambe to leverage his own finances. 'I suspect that Jason Whittingham has built a house of cards, and it is now falling down around his ears,' she said. 'Morecambe FC is being held hostage, and it breaks my heart … The likes of Jason Whittingham should never have been allowed to buy a football club.' Panjab Warriors said this week it was considering legal action against Bond Group Investments, accusing it of possible 'misrepresentation and bad faith dealing'. Whittingham has not commented on the allegations. Morecambe FC was approached by the Guardian for comment. Tarnia Elsworth, the chair of the Shrimps Trust, said the end of the club would devastate Morecambe, a seaside resort that relies on the thousands of football fans who visit the Mazuma Stadium every year. Football was a 'common thread' that held the town together, she said. 'It's the one place where 3,000 people meet regularly to share experience. I've got members who've been doing that for 60 years. For some people it's the only contact they have with other people.' Outside the stadium, lifelong fan Mike Gibson, 58, said he had been watching his beloved Shrimps for 43 years. 'All that time could just disappear and could all be ripped away from you,' he said. 'It just feels like losing a family member. It's a deep part of your life.'


The Guardian
8 minutes ago
- The Guardian
The Guardian view on Reeves's trickle-down economics: deregulation dressed as economic renewal
Rachel Reeves's Mansion House speech mattered less for what it changed than what it confirmed: she's staying – and backing the City. After spooking markets with tears in the Commons, appearing with the Bank of England governor was damage control. The 'Leeds reforms' were billed as bold, but the real message was a return to business as usual. Delivered to a City audience, the speech confirmed a deregulatory tilt that is striking not for its boldness but for its familiarity. Her 'reform' of the ringfencing regime for banks is code for loosening constraints under pressure from the finance lobby. Streamlining the regime brought in after the 2008 crash to hold bank leaders personally responsible for regulatory breaches will weaken post‑crisis accountability standards. One of the City's regulators, the financial ombudsman, will be reined in after industry gripes that its consumer-friendly stance over complaints has exposed banks to compensation claims worth billions of pounds. Mortgage borrowing caps are being eased, allowing lower-income buyers to stretch their finances further. And most revealingly, the Treasury will launch a national campaign next spring to promote stock market investing – because, in 2025, betting on stocks is public policy. It's a curious prescription for an economy whose GDP per head has grown more slowly than any other major high-income country since 2008. A new government promising change might have offered a broader rethink. Instead, it has given us rightwing tropes about red tape being the 'boot on the neck' of business. Today's financial sector is less a source of productive capital than a machine for asset inflation, property speculation and leveraged buyouts. Encouraging households to put their savings into equities, or to take on larger mortgages, will not fix Britain's broken growth model. It will simply shift more risk on to households already burdened by wage stagnation and unaffordable housing. Pushing stock ownership as financial inclusion shows just how Labour has internalised the logic of private enterprise. The state won't raise living standards directly, so individuals are nudged to become their own portfolio managers. This will do little to address the technological and organisational drift of the economy. But it highlights Ms Reeves's deeper misdiagnosis that Britain's stagnation stems from overregulation, not underinvestment; from hesitant consumers, not cautious governments. The real barriers to growth – weak demand, low public investment, regional imbalance – go unaddressed. So too does the self-imposed fiscal straitjacket that constrains state action. The Leeds reforms may boost asset prices, but undermine balanced regional growth. They will enrich the City, not the nation. Instead of building a resilient, innovation-led economy for all, they revive the ideology of asset-led prosperity for the few. They claim financial markets will backfill decades of underinvestment. History suggests they won't. A world-class financial centre isn't the problem – until its priorities outweigh the public's. Reeves says that her reforms will 'ripple' through the economy. But beneath the City-friendly gloss lies a misplaced faith in trickle-down economics – the very model that drove deindustrialisation, inequality and financial crises. Real wages are rising now, lifted by fiscal stimulus, but that can't undo 15 years of stagnation. The issue isn't too much state action – it's too little. Asking households to fix growth by becoming part‑time speculators isn't a plan. It's a cop-out.