A well known hotel in Porthcawl could become a mixed use residence, after a planning application has been submitted for a change of use, potentially turning part of the property in to housing.
The Brentwood Hotel, situated on Mary Street in Porthcawl, has been a popular destination for tourists based near the main shopping street in the town over the years. However, with changing drinking habits since the pandemic cited in the application, two of the three units that make up the hotel could now revert back to housing as they were originally built before the middle of the last century.
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While the Brentwood is currently still open to residents, the application claims that the restaurant is closed and bar sales are down as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The application read: "The present hotel is still open for residents although the restaurant is now closed and the bar sales are down.
"Drinking habits have changed during the Covid pandemic and whether social drinking and its importance to community life will ever return to the level it was before the pandemic is the problem that faces every landlord and hotel owner in Porthcawl or indeed, in the hospitality industry as a whole."
It continued: "The scheme sub-divides the present hotel into three separate elements with one, No37, being retained as a bijou pub and small hotel with four double bedroom available to let and with the owners flat situated on the second floor.
"The pub element would be large enough to cater for approximately 45 seated customers and it would have a small kitchen to cater for snack meals. The other two units No's 39 and 41 could then be sold on as individual houses or kept in the same ownership and let out for family holiday accommodation."
Other options for the property could see No37 retained for the owners personal use and hotel element, with the other two units retained as holiday lets or sold on the open market. A third alternative could see it sub-divided in to three individual boarding houses with family accommodation and rooms to let, though all of three of the alternatives proposed keep an element of holiday lets to be maintained.
The application for the property will likely come before the planning Committee at Bridgend Council in the coming months. You can read more of our stories from Bridgend here.
