Edinburgh planning: Plans to turn former Morningside post office into a hotel with bar, restaurant and bakery
Plans have been submitted to demolish the former Morningside Post Office and build a new hotel with a restaurant, bar and bakery.
The proposals were submitted to the City of Edinburgh Council on October 2 by Ferguson Planning on behalf of Pentland Investments Ltd, for the redevelopment of the 585.9sqm empty building at 265 Morningside Road, Edinburgh.
The plans to demolish the current 1960s-built building and create an 11-bedroom hotel with restaurant, bar and bakery facilities, will now be decided on by the local authority’s planning department.
The site is located on the east side of Morningside Road and is occupied by a vacant single storey building formerly used as a post office. It is set back from the other buildings on this side of Morningside Road and the rear section of the building is two storeys in height.
The proposed new building at the site, located in the Morningside Conservation Area, would be right up to the pavement on Morningside Road and three storeys high, with a garden roof terrace on top.
The ground and first floor public spaces would front onto Morningside Road with generous floor to ceiling heights and large areas of glazing to provide an active frontage. And there would be kitchens and back-of-house facilities to the rear of the development, in close proximity to the delivery area, accessed via Jordan Lane.
The bar and restaurant would be located on the ground floor, with the bakery and private dining area situated on the first floor of the new building. The hotel reception would also be at ground level.
Level two would be dedicated to hotel bedrooms, each with en-suite facilities. While, there would also be a rooftop plant enclosure with acoustic barrier to minimise noise disruption from the garden roof terrace.
In the planning documents, the applicant states: “The proposed developments will deliver a high-quality development on a prime town centre site that has been vacant for several years. The site is in a central, accessible, highly sustainable location.
“The delivery of a greater mix of uses within Morningside town centre will contribute to meeting the objectives of NPF4 and the Edinburgh Local Development Plan / City Plan 2030, helping to provide a healthy and vibrant community.
“A simple pallette of materials is proposed that compliment the existing adjacent buildings and surrounding context.
“The aim is to develop a simple, elegant method of detailing that will provide a balance between the solidity of ashlar sandstone and the crisp modern aesthetic that will provide a vibrant new addition to a rich urban environment.
“The proposals include extensive use of glass at ground and first floor areas to emphasize the desire to provide active and inhabited frontages to the main public areas.
“The proposed development has an impact on the sunlight to the existing garden spaces, but a large area of the existing gardens are already shaded by existing vegetation and trees.”
Planning permission was previously approved on the site in January 2022 for the erection of a new four-storey building comprising of a ground floor retail unit and 11 residential units in the upper floors with a consented height of 14 metres.
The newly proposed hotel development takes its cues from the previously approved residential scheme and seeks to “deliver a form, mass and appearance within the parameters of that which have previously been deemed acceptable and policy compliant by the planning authority”.
The online planning application currently has 21 notes of support and six objections.