A HOTEL can finally be built yards from Colchester’s Castle Park after a councillor’s attempt to secure a judicial review failed for the fifth time.

Whitbread won planning permission in September 2012 from Colchester Council to build an 85-room Premier Inn in St Peter’s Street.

But work to demolish a former Royal Mail depot and build a three-and-a-half-storey hotel in its place has not been able to begin following legal challenges by ward councillor Jo Hayes.

Mrs Hayes, a barrister, said planners had not been told Whitbread had been offered an alternative hotel location in Queen Street, which was higher up a list of the council’s preferred sites.

But now, after a fifth attempt to get permission from first the Administrative Court of London and then the Court of Appeal for a full judicial hearing was rejected, she has exhausted all legal avenues to stop the development beginning.

Work will start this summer, creating 30 jobs.

See Thursday's Gazette for the full story