South Bank hotel blocked over fears area is overrun by hotels

By Robert Firth, Local Democracy Reporter

Plans to build a new 186-room South Bank hotel has been blocked over concerns the area is overrun with hotels.

Lambeth councillors said there were already enough places for tourists to stay nearby and the area desperately needed more houses and cheap office space instead.

They were also worried the proposed 14-storey building opposite Lambeth North Tube station was too tall and would harm views of a nearby Grade II listed Lincoln Tower, built in memory of ex-US president Abraham Lincoln.

Developer North Lambeth Holding BV had planned to include one floor of offices in the building, as well as a basement gym.

The proposals would have redeveloped a mostly empty site on Westminster Bridge Road, previously used to store tour vehicles.

Councillor Scott Ainslie, co-leader of Lambeth’s Green Party group, said there were already 17 hotels within 500 metres of the site and questioned the need for more.

He told a council planning meeting yesterday: “The mix of what’s available in the area and the over saturation of hotel space when we need more residential use, that’s a bit of a concern.”

Joanne Simpson, Labour councillor for Stockwell West and Larkhall, said the building should have included more cheap offices and less hotel rooms.

She said: “There is an identified need for affordable office space. I appreciate this application doesn’t meet the threshold to provide that affordable workspace. It should.

“The reason it isn’t is because the space has been taken up by a hotel. Why could there not be less hotel, more office?”

But Martin Bailey, Labour councillor for Vauxhall, said the economic boost the building would give the local area was enough reason to approve it.

He said: “I’m convinced by the public economic benefits. That for me mitigates the concerns I have otherwise.”

There are already four hotels providing 826 rooms within 50 metres of the site.

In September 2022, Lambeth councillors approved plans to allow Waterloo Hub Hotel, which is a four minutes walk away, to build a 14-storey extension with 193 extra rooms.

Overall councillors voted 4 to 3 against the new hotel at the meeting yesterday.

Pictured top: CGI of how the proposed hotel would have looked (Picture: Lambeth council planning documents)