New luxury hotel given green light

The hotel at Crow Wood Leisure will employ up to 70 people and was described as “affordable luxury” by owner Andrew Brown.

The company, which runs the award-winning Woodland Spa at the complex, can now embark on the project it has been preparing for two years and submit an application to Burnley Borough Council.

Mr Brown said: “This is a significant milestone and we’re delighted to have got this far, but we now have to secure the funding to take the project forward, so there is still a great deal of work to be done.

“Now we have to prepare the final cost plan and business plan to enable the financial institutions to lend, so even if everything goes according to plan, it’s unlikely that any works will begin on site before May 2017.

“We are all really excited about this project and we’ll work really hard to make the hotel a great success and a wonderful asset to Burnley.

“It’s going to be a quality development, but it will represent an affordable luxury – much like The Woodland Spa. With the Global Luxury Spa, we’ve demonstrated that we can make Burnley a destination, so this is the logical next step.”

By its third year of operation the hotel is expected to employ up to 70 full time equivalent staff and will cost approximately £10.5m. to build. The development will also meet strict environmental criteria.

“We’re very proud of the fact that Crow Wood has become a haven for wildlife and we’ll be looking to extend this.

“We’ve already planted 25,000 native trees and many kilometres of native hedgerow on the 100 acre site and we’ll be adding to that by installing an ornamental lake and wetlands that will be planted with a wide range of species to encourage and sustain a whole range of wildlife, providing a great habitat for native flora and fauna,” added Andrew.