One of Brighton’s best known hotels set to be turned into flats

One of Brighton’s best known but failing hotels is set to be turned into flats because it has been losing up to £100,000 a year for the past eight years.

Preston Park Hotel on the A23 has been the scene of hundreds of wedding receptions and other family events for many decades – but its owners are now having to stump up more than £53,000 a year to keep it running.

With its inevitable closure looming, they have applied to turn it into 25 self contained flats, 16 converted from the older part of the hotel and nine new build affordable flats in the place of the existing north wing.

The application, written by Lewis & Co Planning, says: “The existing hotel is trading at a significant loss (the annual loss being between £34,166 and £103,365 for the years since 2007), which has required capital injections of over £53,000 on an annual basis by the Preston Park Hotel Ltd’s directors in order to keep trading. Such a large level of loss is unsustainable.

“The scheme will provide for 16 flats in the “older” part of the hotel, whilst the more modern north flank elevation is to be replaced with a visually superior new build structure accommodating nine self contained units.

“The nine self contained units are to be reserved as affordable housing. The new build structure will be detached from the main building.”

The hotel’s existing 34 parking spaces will be reduced to 27, in keeping with the number of proposed flats.