Disappointment as Hotel Stays in Dorchester Curtailed

While at Athelhampton we have a lot of local footfall, with visitors returning repeatedly, many of our guests come from further afield. Especially in the summer, many of our patrons are from outside the county, and often from outside the country!

As such, many of our guests need somewhere to stay. For some, the Premier Inn in Brewery Square is ideal, being close to public transport links as well as the town centre. Plans for a second hotel directly in the town centre, where M&S used to be, have recently been axed, however. As such, hotel stays in Dorchester are slightly more limited than they might otherwise be.

The planning permission for the new hotel was approved in May last year, and it would have had over 100 bedrooms, complementing the Brewery Square site, with 30 permanent jobs being created. However, rising construction costs and business rates have impacted the company, and after careful consideration Whitbread have decided to no longer continue with the planned project.

The change of plans mean that it might be possible for the site to become mixed use, with retail on the ground floor and the rest of the building used for accommodation - increasing town centre living while also potentially bringing more people into the town for shopping.

At Athelhampton, things will continue much the same as usual. The local hotels and tourists help to add to our visitor numbers, especially in the summer. While the increased footfall that the new hotel would have created would have helped the business, there will be other ways of encouraging that.

We're open all year round, though, except for a few days over Christmas.