'Reinvigorated' Great Northern Hotel could play key role in Peterborough's £65 million Station Quarter development
Hotel was used as migrants’ refuge
A ‘reinvigorated’ Great Northern Hotel is seen as vital to the success of multi-million pound plans to transform Peterborough’s train station and its surrounding area.
Talks are ongoing between Peterborough City Council and the agents for the hotel, which stands just across the road from the train station, to find ways it can play a full part in the £65 million Station Quarter development.
The Great Northern Hotel, in Station Approach, ceased operating as a hotel two years when 80 asylum seekers were moved in by the Home Office.
Although its use as a refuge for asylum seekers ended in 2023, the Great Northern has yet to reopen as a hotel.
However, work is expected to start in the summer on the first stages of the Station Quarter and which will involve reshaping the route between the station and the city centre.
Later works will involve transforming the station, creating a second entrance and revamping the area outside the station. A second phase will involve the construction of homes and offices.
Adrian Chapman, the council’s executive director of place and economy, said: "It’s hard to imagine a fantastic new Station Quarter with a closed, tired hotel within the footprint – it doesn’t really work.
"So we do need to find a way of bringing the hotel into the scheme.
"We are in touch with the owners through their agent.
"A dialogue is open, there is a relationship and we’re in regular touch with them and they are aware that’s what we hope to do.
Mr Chapman said: “We want to incorporate a reinvigorated Great Northern Hotel in the overall development of the station and North Westgate.
“The hotel is not in our ownership so we are a bit constrained but that is not stopping us thinking about what is possible.
He added: “I think it would be a very unfortunate scheme that did not incorporate a regenerated and really fit-for-purpose railway hotel and which would also recognise the roots Peterborough has in railway heritage.
"We have some work to do to think about how that happens but we are very open to then possibilities that are there for us to access.”
The Station Quarter has been given £47 million in Government Levelling Up funding and should attract private funding of £18 million.
A spokesperson for the hotel was not available to comment.