Council leader’s role in Belvedere Hotel application

Councillor John Beesley, acting in his private capacity as Hospitality Solutions, represented Fresh Lime Developments in a meeting with council officers over the Belvedere Hotel plans.

Minutes of the town hall meeting on August 25 reveal he told the council’s transportation services manager Ian Kalra and transport development engineer Claire Clark that the 11 parking spaces proposed for the 131 bedroom hotel were “typical for the industry and that guests and staff do not expect to be able to park on site”.

The scheme was opposed by the Bournemouth Accommodation and Hotel Association (BAHA), as well as Bournemouth Tourism, for the lack of parking contrary to the borough’s own guidelines.

At the planning board meeting in January in which permission was granted, then-BAHA chairman Andy Woodland said 11 parking spaces were “totally inadequate” and “a tenth of the requirement within the core strategy for car parking in tourism establishments, one parking space for every bedroom”.

Mark Smith, council director of tourism, said the lack of parking could damage the hotel’s viability.

“This looks like it is not residential enabling tourism use, rather the other way round,” he said. “The tourism side is being use to provide very sustainable residential accommodation.”

Cllr Stephen Bartlett, one of 10 Conservative councillors who last month signed a complaint about the leader, said at the meeting: “We are also being told in one of the documents that guests don’t expect parking to be there.

“Well that is absolutely ridiculous in my view, they do expect, particularly in a four star, four-and-a-half star development, they do expect parking.”

However officers argued that the site was “sustainable” and did not require additional parking, and that nearby council car parks would pick up the slack. The scheme was approved by five votes to four.

The complaint alleges that Cllr Beesley breached the council’s code of conduct and failed to properly make declarations of pecuniary interests under the Localism Act 2011.

The claims are understood to relate to the leader’s role in the Belvedere application, and the council has announced an external investigation.

When approached by the Echo, one of the signatories, Cllr Nick Rose, said: “As a Westbourne councillor I know that the Wessex Hotel application had to have a minimum of one parking space for every flat and hotel room, as per the supplementary planning document. So I was gobsmacked to hear the Belvedere Hotel was approved with no car parking spaces for the hotel, but a parking space for every flat, allowing them to become luxury flats commanding a premium price.

“It beggars belief that the leader of the council, who is in charge of setting the local development framework, was a consultant for the Belvedere Hotel and for other developments in Bournemouth. There is a huge conflict of interest.”

“What the hell was he thinking when he took on these consultancy jobs?”

Cllr Beesley told the Echo there was no conflict of interest. In the August meeting, he said, he was “simply stating a matter of fact within a national perspective about new build hotels in larger towns and cities”.

He said: “In fact if you consider the minutes in full, then it becomes even clearer that I was at the meeting in my specific role for hospitality issues alone and not in some wider planning capacity, nor in my role as leader of the council.

“It rather puts the lie to some of the speculation being promoted by those who have made the complaint against me.”

Hoteliers' surprise at council leader's involvement in project

HOTELIERS have expressed their surprise at council leader John Beesley’s involvement with the Belvedere development.

Rosie Wallace, the managing director of Marsham Court Hotel, who spoke at the planning meeting against the scheme, said: “I can tell you no hotel thinks 11 car parking spaces for 131 bedrooms is enough.

“I can’t see anyone wanting to take a hotel on without even 10 per cent of its parking.

“I am surprised that John Beesley would have been involved in something like that knowing what it is like in Bournemouth.

“They have all been pushing over the past few years for hotels to get more involved with planning, and they have come up with this thing about one car parking space for every bedroom, and this completely goes against that.

“What were the last two or three years of work for?”

Andy Woodland, chairman of BAHA at the time, said: “I was quite surprised that the leader wasn’t at the meeting after the planning officer read out a statement regarding his involvement with it.

“This was an important application, I had thought there might have been a bit more discussion about our feelings about the lack of car parking.

“We want the site redeveloped but not at any cost. This went in the face of previous applications.”