Save The Three Cups Hotel

The Three Cups Hotel

Campaigning for preservation of the hotel where J.R.R. Tolkien stayed and gained inspiration for his mythology. Jane Austen, G.K. Chesterton, Tennyson and H.W. Longfellow were also guests. The hotel featured in the film, “The French Lieutenant’s Woman”. Please send articles to me, Andrew Townsend, at afmt@btinternet.com or add a comment. Thanks to David Moss for all his work. Comments are closed at WDDC for the plans to redevelop the site but you can still write to the papers.

Friday, July 16, 2010

Wider Coverage and New Connections

The more people who hear about the disgraceful closure of the badly needed Three Cups Hotel the better. So, it is good news that John Grantham of Community Alert on Pubs and Hotels and their Closures has had a letter published on the subject in The Western Gazette. Click through to read the full text of John's letter to the paper and see some more names of famous people who visited "The Cups".

Three Cups must reopen as a hotel

Your readers will know that the Three Cups Hotel in the main street of Lyme Regis has been tragically shut and degenerating for over 20 years. The Hotel is bursting with heritage e.g. visitors include Tolkien, Tennyson, Chesterton, Jane Austen, Longfellow, Belloc, Uffa Fox, Chaplin, Cagney, Holloway, Irons/Streep in the French Lieutenant’s Woman, and General Eisenhower who actually briefed his officers there before D-Day. The owners have said they are imminently going to put forward plans which will end its life as a hotel and involve an element of demolition. Lyme Regis is in desperate need of more top quality hotels – the current ones say they can not keep up with demand. Recently WDDC had a report produced – the Goadsby Report - which was ‘to validate the conclusions of the Developer-commissioned TRI Report. The WDDC’s Goadsby Report is clear, but as the conclusion the council draws from it is not the conclusion other people draw from it I have written the following letter to WDDC, drawing attention to the discrepancies. The letter to the Chief Executive of WDDC runs as follows, and I am trusting my Public Question for Thursday will not be banned, as my direct contact with several of their officers has already been!

The letter:

Dear Mr Clarke (CE/WDDC)

Your letter of 9th June rejects my three Public Questions for 15th July’s Council Meeting. You say “I am of the opinion that these matters have already been dealt with through the council’s formal complaint procedure”. However, this is a process ‘you’ (not I) have deposited my questions into, for a number of months.

At the 13th May meeting, WDDC’s claim that I hadn’t been banned from contacting WDDC officers was disproved, via circulation to all councillors of a copy of the WDDC letter instating the ban. Now your letter of 9th June attempts to ban my 3 Public Questions.

I am now sending you just one (new) question for Thursday 15thJuly. This concerns wording used by WDDC relating to the June 22nd Executive meeting, and so can’t already have “been dealt with”:

The Question: “WDDC reported for the 22nd June Executive that… ‘Goadsby considered the conclusion of TRI, that the (Three Cups) property was not viable as a Hotel, was broadly correct’.
However, what Goadsby said was ‘I do not disagree with the conclusions of TRI, on the schemes they have considered, that they are not viable’.
Goadsby didn’t ‘broadly’ agree, he only ‘did not disagree’ – entirely different – how indeed could he possibly ‘agree’ when confirming he only ‘assumes’ TRI’s redevelopment costings of £206,000 - £231,000 ‘per bedroom’(!) are correct? He also states his comments relate only to the (two) schemes reported in TRI.
Goadsby doesn’t state the Three Cups is unviable in principle as a hotel. On what grounds does WDDC now believe the hotel is unviable, given also there are hoteliers currently ‘standing by’ to purchase it as a hotel?”

I trust the 48 councillors will be allowed to hear both question and answer on Thursday.

John Grantham.
Community Alert on Pubs and Hotels and their Closures,
Burton Bradstock

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