COUNCILLORS are to discuss plans to turn a former care home into a hotel next week.

If approved, Hotel 52, in Joicey Square, Stanley, will have 25 bedrooms, a licensed restaurant for hotel guests and customers from the area, a coffee shop and meeting facilities.

Proposals to transform Stanfield House into studio flats and a training centre were scrapped over concerns they were not viable.

All Saints Living, the Newcastle-based property developer behind the development, said interest in the previous scheme from potential tenants and local businesses was not encouraging.

The hotel is aimed at targeting the tourist trade with visitor attractions such as Beamish Museum, Tanfield Railway and the Coast to Coast cycle route nearby.

Visit County Durham has said the Stanley Destination Development Plan April 2015 identified the potential for developing accommodation in the town.

Senior Planning officer Steve France said: “It concluded a need for an inn with rooms offer and/or a small budget hotel and an urgent need for alternative uses for vacant buildings.

“Stanley has the advantage of two main pipelines that bring people within a few hundred yards of the town’s main street.

“The Coast to Coast cycle route is half a mile to the west of the town. Hundreds of thousands of people cycle on parts of the route and around 15,000 complete the full C2C route annually.

“The A693 passes a hundred yards to the east along which approximately 12,000 vehicles travel each day or 5.7million vehicle journeys passing Stanley.”

Durham County Council has received no objections to the hotel plan.

All Saints Living has said 30 people will work on the construction and around 15 will be employed to run the hotel once it is complete.

The former Durham County Council care home was closed in 2011 and sold two years later.

The new scheme will be discussed at the north area planning committee meeting at County Hall in Durham on Thursday, March 30, at 2pm.

Mr France has written a report for councillors advising them to back the development.

He said: “Stanfield House is in a highly sustainable location on the edge of the central business district of Stanley, which has a range of goods and services available, and excellent transport links.

“The application proposes to bring a prominent unused building back into a use that has the potential to economically benefit the town and surrounding area.”