PLANS for a Premier Inn hotel and a Beefeater restaurant in the car park of Leekes of Melksham have been scrapped.
The £7million project for a 71-bed hotel and 246-cover restaurant, was given planning permission last year. However Whitbread, the company behind the project, has decided to terminate its agreement with Leekes following a review of its planned projects in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The new development was expected to bring 45 full-time jobs to the area and contribute £2.4million to the town’s economy.
A spokesperson for Leekes told Melksham News, “In light of the immediate Covid-19 crisis and enforced closure of hotel and restaurant premises, coupled with the longer term economic uncertainty; Whitbread have been revisiting all of their planned new hotel sites with a more cautious approach and unfortunately have taken up their right to terminate their agreement with Leekes to build a Premier Inn & Beefeater in Melksham.
“It’s massively disappointing for us as we’ve invested a great deal of time and money getting to a position where we both had planning and were ready to start building.
“We would hope that as we emerge from the current situation, Premier Inn are able to recover quickly and as a result, revisit the agreement. In the meantime, we will pursue some interest we’ve had in our excess land to see if we can find any viable alternative uses.
“Despite the disappointing outcome, we’d like to thank the Melksham Town and Wiltshire councils for their support throughout the planning process.”
