£8m pound deal secured to transform former post office into luxury Indigo Hotel in Blackpool town centre
The conversion of a flagship post office into a luxury hotel has moved a step closer with an £8 million grant.
Blackpool Council has given its approval to enter into a £8m grant funding agreement with Ashall Hospitality (Blackpool) LLP. Ashall Hospitality will explore the viability of citing an Indigo Hotel at the listed former Abingdon Street Post Office.
The transformation is set to be a £26 million development of which an £8 million grant has been approved.
The council applied for Levelling Up Funding, Round 2 (LUF2) in April 2022 for the refurbishment of the former Post Office on Abingdon Street into an Indigo branded hotel. The bid was initially rejected but then later approved in the Budget in March 2023, under capital regeneration funding (CRF) .
Since then officers have been working with Ashall Hospitality to continue with the scheme, reviewing the project and the design, in the context of rising inflation and interest rates and revising the delivery model to mitigate these risks.
It is due to be converted into an Indigo-branded hotel with agreements now in the process of being signed with developer Ashall Developments, which will pave the way for surveys to demonstrate if the project remains viable or not.
The Grade II listed building has been empty since 2007 and has since fallen into disrepair with many of the windows now broken and the iconic phone boxes at the front, which are also Grade II listed, also in a bad state of repair.
Councillor Smith, Cabinet member for Economy and Built Environment said: “This beautiful listed building is in such a prominent position in the town centre and holds much nostalgia for residents. It is essential we explore all opportunities to give it a new lease of life.
“It has been vacant for a long time now and I very much look forward to working with Ashall Hospitality, despite all the setbacks we have experienced and thank them for their tenacity and patience.
“We need to find a suitable use for this building and I am determined to seize the opportunity to bring it back into productive use.”
He added: “If the development is viable it will create new employment opportunities in the town whilst also maintaining one of Blackpool’ s many prized heritage assets.”
This council will release the grant funding in two phases:
Phase 1 – Viability stage - exchange of contracts on the building, whilst a number of surveys are carried out to determine viability of the scheme funded from the grant in instalments.
Phase 2 Post Viability stage – this element will incorporate completion of the building purchase and full construction phase using the balance of the grant funding.
The grant funding will be released in instalments further to the signing of the Grant Funding Agreement with the council.
The council is and will remain the accountable body with the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government.
This project has received funding through the UK Government Capital Regeneration Fund (CRP”) further to a successful bid application.