PLANS have been submitted for a 26-room extension which it is hoped will boost trade at a Symonds Yat hotel.

A Mr Rollinson has applied to Herefordshire Council for outline planning permission to demolish an existing eight-room extension at the Royal Lodge Hotel, beside the River Wye and replace it with a larger two- and three-storey structure.

Despite the owners’ investment in the hotel, a former hunting lodge, “the layout and quality and size of many of the rooms is now very tired”, a statement with the application says.

There has also been “low demand” to use the hotel as a wedding venue, despite extensive marketing and the opening of a new function room in 2015, while the mid-week conference market “has dwindled in recent years”, the statement adds.

However the owners believe that occupancy rates “can be increased throughout the year, including increased demand for weddings, if a higher standard of accommodation were available”, it says.

Details of the extension’s layout, scale, appearance and landscaping will be put forward in a future application if the outline plan is approved.

If approved, the work would led to five more full-time and five part-time staff roles at the hotel, it adds.

Comments on the outline plan, numbered 231203, can be made until June 16 on the council’s website.