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not an “economic proposition” at the time.
Despite spending about two years trying
to find an operator for a new hotel, the
company admitted that “all our efforts in this
direction have come to nought. We have
combed England and the Continent in an
effort to find [a] hotel operator, but although
many have taken a closer look at the
scheme none was prepared to go ahead.”
associated with the high-rise walkways on
the former Palatine site around the Palace
night club and Coral Island.
The drastic proposal was, unsurprisingly,
unpopular with many residents and local
journalists alike. In fact, there were so
many objectors to the plan that they could
not all be accommodated in the town hall,
and a nearby theatre had to be hired for
an inquiry into the development. In 1964
the local historian, A. F. Warner, argued
that the council had made a “disastrous
blunder”, highlighting how unnecessary
the redevelopment was when compared to
other towns around Britain:
By 1965, Mr. Nickson admitted that “his
company had closed down the residential
and catering side of the Palatine as it
had become less and less profitable”
(Hawthorne, 1965, p.18). He further added
that another luxury hotel in its place “would
not be used much”, suggesting that the site
was no longer suitable for accommodation
use and that Blackpool itself was not a
place to profit from exorbitant facilities.
“most of the big development schemes
either carried out or projected are in
towns where bombing laid the property
to waste, and something had to be
done; or else in towns where business
is a 52-weeks-in-a-year affair and not,
as in Blackpool, restricted to a limited
season of a few months when profit
has to be made or it is not made at all”
(Warner, 1964, p.8).
Central Beach Development
Despite the lack of appetite for a luxury hotel,
Blackpool Corporation was nevertheless
preparing to launch a £15m scheme that
would require the redevelopment of 18
acres of central Blackpool, including a new
purpose-built shopping facility, of which 16.5
acres would be compulsorily purchased.
The proposal was described by Blackpool
Corporation’s lawyer as “the first essential
step towards reshaping the centre of
Blackpool on modern lines” and “ambitious
and far reaching: a viable and economic
prospect” (ibid.). The area in question ran
north of the old central station site up to the
existing Winter Gardens, and would later
be known as the Hounds Hill Shopping
Centre. Somewhat alarmingly by today’s
standards, only “the Tower and a few other
buildings” were incorporated int o this new
plan with the rest to be “demolished if it is
approved”. Among the buildings proposed
to be demolished were: The Queen’s
Theatre (now a TK Maxx), the Grand
Theatre (thankfully still standing), several
stores, the Evening Gazette office and
the Palatine Hotel. The proposal included
plans to modernise the town centre with
“skyscraper blocks [and] parking for 2,000
cars” along with the “complete segregation
of pedestrians and vehicles” (Hawthorne,
1965, p.18), something that would later be
Despite the local opposition, the scheme
was approved in June 1967 by the Minister
of Housing and Local Government, with the
demolishment of the Grand Theatre and the
Palatine Hotel designated to begin around
18 months later.
Progress was slow, however, and in 1972
The Palatine Hotel was still standing. A
decade had passed since the first sale
and the site was sold off once again, to
yet another London property development
company, this time by Samuel Montagu
and Co Ltd. on behalf of Trafalgar House
Developments for £812,500. At the time,
the developers had not decided the exact
nature of the development but were “putting
a lot of research into the possibility of some
entertainment use” (‘£812,000 bid’, 1972).
Eventually the Palace nightclub was built
on the site.
One of the major developments in the
scheme was for a large indoor shopping
centre that would cover a large portion
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