The former Palace Hotel has vanished
Heavy earth movers have transformed the site of the former Palace Hotel in Torquay. Work is now well underway building 37 luxury houses on the site of the tennis courts.
Residents in Babbacombe have been warned that work will take two years. It's part of £150m plans by Singapore-based Fragrance Group, which bought the Palace Hotel and 19-acres of parkland at Babbacombe along with three other sites in the English Riviera for state-of-the-art new hotels.
Plans have been approved for a luxury modern spa resort and nine-storey hotel. Now Brady Construction Services are building the new homes on the lower half of the site beside Anstey's Cove Road – but no mention has yet been made of when work is due to start constructing the luxury hotel. Planners were told it will be the "first five-star hotel" built in Torbay for generations.
READ NEXT: Inside Torquay's Derelict Palace Hotel
So far the earth movers have levelled terraces for the new 'village' of 37 homes and moved many tons of earth across Anstey's Cove Road to the former hotel site. All that now remains is the former detached manager's house beside Babbacombe Road.
Elsewhere in Torbay the Fragrance Group is pushing ahead with its £23m plans for the former Corbyn Head Hotel at Livermead. Work will begin on the new hotel this summer, and will be completed in summer 2024. The new hotel will have 152 guest rooms, restaurant and terraces that overlook the bay. There will also be an onsite spa and rooftop bar, with parking provision for 101 cars and a coach drop-off area. The former Corbyn Head Hotel was demolished in early 2020.
The Singapore investors' £30m plans for two new Paignton seafront hotels – the Mercure and Ibis Styles were held up by the collapse of Midas Construction. Work has now started again after the collapse of Midas, which entered administration in January blaming a toxic cocktail of Covid, inflation and cashflow problems.
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