Wraps off £20m plan for luxury hotel

A new multi-million pound upmarket hotel to transform one of Wolverhampton's oldest industrial sites off a main city gateway has taken a step closer to reality, as full details about the plans are unveiled.

Here is a glimpse of the striking 120-bedroom hotel developers want to create as part of a £20 million development on the former Metal Castings factory site, off Penn Road. The seven-storey hotel building is set to stand among a leisure complex of shops, restaurants and office as well as more than 270 homes.

Workers have already spent weeks demolishing old buildings on the site and clearing it away ready to turn the proposals into a reality.

In a report to planning chiefs, developers said the city already had enough "economy" hotels and pledged to create an upmarket complex which they hope will be used as an overspill for people visiting Birmingham.

A planning application for the scheme, located next to Waitrose and opposite McDonald's, has now been submitted by Parkridge Securities ready to be decided by Wolverhampton City Council's planning chiefs.

Dozens of jobs are set to be created if the plans are given the go-ahead.

The former Metal Castings site in Graiseley Hill has been home to automotive and specialist metal casting businesses in the manufacturing industry for more than 100 years.

But since the factory closed in 2004 with the loss of 40 jobs, the site has been unused and become an eyesore.

It was sold to Metal Castings around a decade ago and the factory made car and washing machine parts before its closure.

On a specialist website set up about the multi-million pound development, bosses said: "The proposal will transform an empty, decaying industrial site into an exciting, vital and positive architectural addition to the street scene.

"The commercial elements of the proposal will also generate a significant number of new employment opportunities.""