After reclassifying 900 of Blackpool’s hotels and guesthouses so that they are no longer required to be holiday accomodation, Maxine Callow has been in the media discussing it.
However, whilst she says that change is required and “tough decisions must be made” (where’ve we heard that before?) , she completely avoids the important question of houses of multiple occupancy.
On the one hand, she happily states that Blackpool needs quality and not quantity. I completely one hundred percent agree with that. I also completely agree with her that 3 and 4 star accommodation is seriously lacking, indeed I’ve gone on about that on here in the past.
However this bold move could potentially create a social gap between areas in Blackpool that is so big that some areas become no-go areas of crime, drunks, drug addicts and dregs of society.
At the moment, most guesthouses and hotels are of similar quality, so if you stay off Waterloo Road or on Albert Road you probably get about the same experience, albeit a dated one. No comparison with a Travel Lodge anyway.
But no matter where you stay, there aren’t really any no-go areas. Sure some roads are awful, like Central Drive, Cookson Street, and so on, but you can still just about walk down them without fear.
Once a few HMOs start to appear in the reclassified areas, though, any remaining hotel businesses will suffer dramatically. It wont be an instant impact but the socio-economic implications of HMOs will kill off the area over time. Perfect, really, for the council to issue compulsory purchase orders once the market hits rock bottom.
The town hall has stated that these hotels will become family homes, but no family wants to live near a HMO. The council knows this just as well as anyone else does.
On the plus side, those hotels still within the tourism area will in theory gain business from these hotels that are now on death row; provided the HMO experience hasn’t put visitors off completely.
However it doesn’t necessarily achieve what Maxine Callow wants. She wants hotels and guesthouses to improve their facilities; again, something I have been calling for on here. But how is killing off competing businesses going to do that?
The only way a business will invest and improve is if it has to. Handing them visitors on a plate wont achieve that. Inviting companies like Premier Inn into the centre of Blackpool will.
What I would ask is whether we even need to classify areas for holiday accommodation.
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I think this is one thing that the council have taken a step in the right direction in.
The problem with all the comments on the Gazette site complaining about HMOs is that those types of accommodation are already in place in the ‘main holiday areas’ – and have been for the past two decades. Holiday apartments/ guest houses that have been allowed to be used as unofficial bedsits, because the owners have i) had very little choice in the face of a dwindling market and static oversupply of accommodation and ii) known they can get away with it because the council hasn’t had the capacity to deal with them and the council has, in the past, tacitly allowed it to go on.
The comments talk about HMOs, as if they don’t even exist in Blackpool at the moment and are only a potential threat!
The draft planning guidance issued last year already addresses concerns about HMO conversion, specifically stating the rules that should be in place to allow conversion of holiday accommodation in to private housing.
http://www.blackpool.gov.uk/democracy/members/admin/files/f4d433d8-a39f-4e9b-b78d-4006b11101a1/090608%201740%20Draft.pdf
It’s a small step in the right direction, by allowing a little bit more freedom for property owners who can see the writing on the wall, but you’ve hit the nail on the head when you about the need at all for areas of holiday accommodation. There really is no need for it – it’s a hindrance to the industry, as we’ve seen over the past two decades.
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I agree John, what is needed though is a clear statement of intent from the council that these guest houses will only be allowed to be converted to family homes and not HMO’s.
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This council is run by a stupid mound of repulsive fat that is the product of brother and sister, this creature also wants to cut the south line.This creature is a social abomination and given the chance will wreck Blackpools chances of improvement.
Its as insane as repulsive.
Its filth.
It needs to be treated with Zyclon B.
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I notice that document is only a consultation device.
That said at least they are moving on the issues…
As I mentioned on the gasjet they are already in the process of buying up ex holiday accommodation.
This wasn’t compulsory purchased where as I understand it a fair market price was achieved on each unit.
All this occurred last spring around May and the ones I know about have been empty ever since.
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What you are saying about forcing hotels to improve by generating more competition is not entirely true phil. What Blackpool has managed to do in recent years is almost make a “perfect economy” as far as hotel rooms are concerned. Blackpool is swamped by rooms and the cheapest is getting the business therefore a lot of hotels are only breaking even and don’t have enough money to reinvest in their business. So using economic principles the only way to drive prices up and give hotels money to reinvest is to make rooms less available letting hotels charge more for them. The difficulty is finding the balance when hotels will use extra profit to invest in it self (because if it doesn’t customers will go elsewhere) and when there are to few rooms they can get away with charging what they want with no need to improve.
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To be fair I didn’t say that. I said that allowing failing hotels/guesthoues to turn into HMOs/houses didn’t mean that the remaining “protected” ones would upgrade their facilities because these places are all of similar standard.
I suggested that if the closure of a number of failing hotels caused an increase in demand for the available rooms, then in theory these hotel owners would gain business – but this didn’t mean that they would put the extra money into the business to modernise.
My point about Premier Inn was that they are modern and decent quality for reasonable room rates, and these hotels have raised the standard of what people expect in a hotel room. Placing one in the centre would throw the gauntlet down to the other hoteliers, “modernise or die”.
That’s why I think if the hotel next the Winter Gardens gets built, it’s going to decimate the hotel business down Adelaide Street, down Albert Road, and any other surrounding streets – if only because it will have a car park!
I agree with that you say, though.
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But you all so said “But how is killing off competing businesses going to do that?” as long as you don’t kill of all the competition then it should. But you are right HMO for fuck witless wonders.
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