City councillors have backed a four-storey extension at a top York hotel.
The planning committee of City of York Council has agreed to officer recommendations to approve the 41-bed extension to the landmark Principal Hotel at York Station.
The scheme will also see a new entrance and reception area, reconfigured parking and landscaping.
Planning staff said the application was similar to one approved several years ago but never built.
They added the extension was not harmful to the setting of the hotel and the surrounding area.
However Cllr Mark Warters said he believed the development was ‘overbearing’ but because a scheme had been approved on the site, the committee’s ‘hands were tied’ and it should be approved.
Members overwhelmingly approved the application, but they imposed a range of conditions, including the hotel reducing carbon emissions by 28 per cent.
The Principal Hotel is operated by RBH Management. A spokesperson for the management company said the hotel owners did not want to comment on gaining the planning approval, or give a comment on its cost and timetable for construction.
When it was built in 1878, the Grade II-listed Principal Hotel would have been York’s largest building after the Minster, stature which increased further when the west wing was redesigned and enlarged to 7-storeys in 1896.
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