First Hotels For City

Lisburn is a city without a hotel, but not for much longer it seems, as two hotels are in the pipeline for the area.

The Planning Service has granted the go-ahead to Whitbread Plc for a new £10m hotel in the Co Down city.

The fate of the proposed Premier Inn on the Hillsborough Road, will be decided at the city council planning committee meeting on Monday night, but it is expected that the plans will get the green light from councillors.

Developers, the Conway Group, have said they worked closely with planners to ensure that the 60-bed Premier Inn hotel and Brewers Fayre restaurant sits well within the local environment.

Des Taggart, spokesman for the Conway Group said: "This is a great opportunity for Lisburn to create an excellent new tourism amenity with a Premier Inn and Brewers Fayre restaurant in a beautiful setting beside the river Lagan.

"The site will also provide new parking access and a potential new route into the Lagan Valley Regional park. This will add an excellent new, family-friendly amenity that will be great for tourists and the local population in Lisburn."

It is expected that the £10m investment will create up to 60 new jobs and attract thousands of new visitors to Lisburn.

In a separate effort to a bring the first hotel to the city, a local businessman is hoping to turn old farm buildings into a luxury five star hotel and associated spa facility, on the Hillhall Road just outside the city.

The proposed development, Lagan Valley Hotel and Spa, also has the backing of Lisburn City Council and the NI Tourist Board. If it gets the go-ahead, the new facility should be open by 2010.

The man behind the scheme, former hotelier Arthur Mooney said there is a place for a luxury development. "There is a limited amount of five star properties within the north of Ireland. We feel there is a tremendous market for a five star hotel and not just for tourism but for the local market itself," he said.

Mr Mooney has already enlisted the services of a top architectural firm from Dublin which has designed similar complexes in the Republic.

(VB/JM) (BMcC)