CONTROVERSIAL plans for a four-storey budget hotel at Blackpool Pleasure Beach were given the go-ahead by Blackpool Council this week.

Members of the council's development control committee met on Monday to discuss the plans for the 117 bedroom hotel to be built in the shadow of the Pepsi Max roller coaster at the south end of the park.

The hotel will include rooms for disabled people, business suites, and family accommodation for up to six people and will be built on the pay and display car park off Clifton Drive, South Shore. It will also offer associated restaurant and parking facilities.

But the plans have angered nearby residents and hoteliers, who said the hotel would cause problems with car parking and would be extra competition.

Josie Hammond, of the Blackpool Hotel and Guest House Association, said reaction to the decision was mixed. "I think the main concern is the fact that it's going to be a budget hotel because the hoteliers feel they can't compete on a level playing field.

"There is no doubt that it will be a quality product but it is competition. We have heard for a long time that there is an over-supply of bed spaces in Blackpool and this is adding to it."

Councillor Michael Carr, chairman of the development control committee, confirmed there had been objections from hoteliers, but said: "Mainly the objections are on trade but that's not a planning issue.

"Even our opposition members were complimentary and I think everybody realised that the days of shared bathrooms and toilets are long gone. People want this type of accommodation."

He added that the Pleasure Beach had recently bought the Bond Street car park, which would help offset the loss of 110 car parking spaces when the hotel is built.

Ward Councillor Carol Radcliffe spoke out against the plans at Monday's meeting. She told The Citizen: "I feel a lot of sympathy with the hoteliers. Many of them have invested everything in their hotel business. It does concern me that there are too many hotel beds in the area."

A Pleasure Beach spokesman denied the hotel was in competition with local businesses. "Rather than competition, it's offering the visitors to Blackpool an extra choice," she said.

"We are offering a different kind of accommodation. The rooms are a good seven metres bigger than your average hotel room and within each room there is a separate children's sleeping area which gives the parents more privacy."

She said the hotel was expected to be ready by early 2003.