Grosvenor Hotel in Bristol set to be finally pulled down

The Grosvenor Hotel appeared in the 1979 film Radio On, which included a road trip from London to Bristol (Source: Know Your Place)

The fire-damaged former Grosvenor Hotel will be pulled down after Bristol City Council approved plans for the demolition of the sorry site.

Officers at the authority brushed aside objections over the need to restore the ‘historic site’ to give owner Nimish Popat the go-ahead for the work, which he has said will take between four and eight weeks to complete.

In a report accompanying the decision made on Friday (April 14), officers said as the building was not listed or within a conservation area, it was not protected from demolition - and that plans were afoot to redevelop the area.

The building was left severely damaged by a huge fire on October 15 last year - but even before that it was dilapidated due to being derelict for around 30 years, although a squatter was living inside recently.

It had been opened in 1875, and served as a stay over for travellers using Bristol Temple Meads, which opened 35 years earlier. In the late 1980s it became a bed and breakfast for the homeless before, in 1993, closing its doors on safety grounds.

Back in 2018, plans were provisionally approved to pull down the hotel for officers and shops as part of the Temple Circus redevelopment plans - but negotiations over developer payments under a Section 106 agreement were never completed.

Now they could be back on the table, according to Mayor Marvin Rees, who tweeted about the council’s approval to demolition the hotel, and added: “We’ll make this area one for Bristol to be proud of again, and secured £95m for Temple Quarter.”

Under the approved demolition of the hotel, work will take place Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm, and Saturdays from 8am to 1pm. The work could take as little as four weeks to complete assuming no further asbestos is discovered.

Meanwhile, Avon and Somerset Police are still investigating the ‘deliberate’ fire at the hotel. Council officers in their report said there was no evidence before them that the fire was a result of anyone with an interest in the land.