Premier Inn St Ives

Whitbread has secured planning permission for a 90-bedroom Premier Inn on Trewidden Road in St Ives, beside the Trenwith car park, after the Planning Inspectorate allowed its appeal on 13 May 2025. Cornwall Council's committee had refused the scheme in April 2024, against its own officers' recommendation, and the decision drew a sharp response from St Ives Town Council. The consent covers demolition of an existing care home and would deliver the town's first substantial new-build hotel in decades; no construction or opening date has been announced.

The place

The site is on Trewidden Road, on the higher ground above St Ives, immediately adjacent to Trenwith — the town's largest public car park and the point at which most visitors arriving by road leave their vehicles before walking or taking the shuttle down to the harbour. It is a few minutes above the seafront rather than on it, close to the Tate St Ives end of town. The parcel is currently occupied by a care home, which the consent permits to be demolished.

The concept

The proposal has had an unusually contested route to consent. Cornwall Council's planning committee refused the scheme in April 2024, a week after the authority's own planning officers had recommended it for approval. Whitbread appealed, a one-day hearing was held in St Ives on 19 March 2025, and the Planning Inspectorate published its decision allowing the appeal on 13 May 2025. Permission now covers the demolition of the existing care home on Trewidden Road and the erection of a 90-bedroom hotel with associated landscaping, car parking and infrastructure. The decision was not welcomed locally. St Ives Town Council responded that the outcome had failed the community, and the scheme drew sustained objection during the process, with local coverage relaying residents' description of the building as out of scale for the town. The counter-argument put by Whitbread and accepted by the inspector is that St Ives has almost no branded, fixed-price hotel stock: its accommodation is concentrated in long-standing harbourside guesthouses, a handful of independent hotels and, increasingly, short-term holiday lets, which has pushed the cost of a bed in the town well above the Cornish average. Both readings are on the record, and this guide does not adjudicate between them. No construction start or opening date has been published, which is why no year is given here.

Dining & wellness

No restaurant or bar concept has been confirmed for this specific property, and no spa or wellness facility forms part of the consented scheme.