A five-storey hotel, shopping and office complex could be built on the site of a used car garage.

Planning agent MRPP has submitted plans to Havering Council on behalf of developer Eastern Ironworks for an 82-room hotel, together with 6,500sq ft of shops and offices, on the Times Tees Cars site in Station Road, Upminster.

With the garage to be demolished, the scheme includes one building of up to five storeys facing Station Road, and another of four storeys backing on to Wilson Close.

The developer is said to be already in dialogue with potential tenants over the ground floor commercial units, with the hotel on the floors above.

The 82 rooms planned include a mix of 49 double rooms, 24 family rooms, and nine accessible rooms.

The designs also feature landscape and environmental improvements, among them a new pedestrian connection between Wilson Close and Station Road, with a new pavement area along the frontages. 

Limited parking facilities are to be provided, with one Blue Badge space at the rear of the site.

A number of cycle storage spaces are however to be available, with a total of 12 long-stay spaces, and 16 short-stay, divided between those using the commercial spaces and the hotel rooms.

Romford Recorder: A view of the site as it is now, looking at it from Station RoadA view of the site as it is now, looking at it from Station Road (Image: Google)

In a design and access statement in the application, Stockwool, a London-based architecture firm, describes the current use of the site as feeling “temporary...which leaves the flanks of the two buildings either side of the site exposed”. 

It adds that the two “very good mixed-use buildings” mean there is an opportunity to provide a new building of similar quality, “with a significantly improved retail offer that would help strengthen the role of the shopping centre”.

Stockwool further suggests the proposed development would generate “genuine social value for the area as well as creating substantial improvements to the local built environment through the introduction of new high quality new building, and improved public realm”. 

MRPP was approached for comment. 

View the application at the Havering Council online planning portal using the reference P1585.22.