PLANS have been submitted for 18 flats and three retail units on the site of a former Oban hotel.
Paul Sloan has made the application to Argyll and Bute Council for the former Argyll Hotel site, on the town’s Corran Esplanade. The hotel was demolished in 2011.
An application by a different applicant for 15 studio apartments over three floors, with a restaurant unit on the ground floor, was approved by the council in 2023 despite eight objections from the public. Permission was also granted for a 28-bedroom hotel in 2017, but expired in 2023.
Council officials are expected to rule on the latest application by early March, with the public now able to view plans and submit feedback.
No design statement is currently available in the suite of documents for the most recent application, although drawings are available.
In a handling report awarding planning permission for the site in April 2023, a council officer said: “The site is a gap site at the southern end of the Corran Esplanade situated between the Oban Inn and the Regent Hotel, both of which are category B listed buildings, as are the Charles Street buildings to the rear of the site.
“On the opposite side of the public road is the Columba Hotel, again a Category B listed building along with the North Pier public car park.
“During the consideration of the previous applications for the site it was recognised that the site occupies a sensitive position within a terrace of Victorian buildings in a prominent location adjacent to the North Pier and, when viewed from the approach to Oban by sea, it forms an important part of the foreground in the townscape, rising up to McCaig’s Tower on the skyline.”
To view the plans and submit feedback, visit the council’s planning portal at argyll-bute.gov.uk and use the reference number 25/02088/PP.
