A FRESH tourism offering is set to be available in the grounds of a Peebles hotel after a bid to build three holiday lodges was approved.

The Park, on Innerleithen Road, filed the plans with Scottish Borders Council (SBC) at the start of the year.

And last week the local authority’s planning chiefs backed the pod proposals, which are hoped to broaden the hotel’s “market appeal”.

Recommending the project’s approval, SBC planning officer Ranald Dods said: “The principle of the development is acceptable in this instance as the units would be located within the grounds of an existing hotel. A condition is recommended restricting the use of the occupation of the units to holidaymakers.

“Located between existing hedges to the north and south, the lodges have been designed to have the appearance of garden buildings. They would be finished externally with dark stained vertical timber cladding and the slate roofs would be clad with slate. At the southern end of each unit would be a small area of decking and a glazed section. The units would be separated from each other by privet hedging.

“The design, relatively discrete location and proposed planting all combine to minimise the visual impact of the proposal. Had circumstances been different, I may have reached a different conclusion.”

Only “genuine holidaymakers” will be able to stay in the lodges for individual periods not exceeding four weeks in total within any consecutive period of 13 weeks. The category C-listed hotel dates back to the early nineteenth century.

A design statement submitted as part of the application stated: “The existing successful hotel business identified the need to broaden their market appeal and offer a wider variety of accommodation options for guests coming to the area and the proposals are to be considered in the context of being an extension of the existing business at The Park hotel.

“Separate self-catering ‘pod’ type accommodation was seen to be the perfect match for the current offerings.”