A HOTEL manager said he has been left feeling ‘disgusted’ after his landlord submitted a planning application to convert the hotel without his knowing.

Wayne Paul, manager of the Old Post House Hotel in Clitheroe said no-one told him plans had been submitted to Ribble Valley Council to convert part of the King Street hotel into a retail unit and set of apartments.

The applicant, R E Dawson LTD, described the hotel and restaurant, which dates back to 1975, as ‘financially unsustainable’ in its current form.

With owners, Clitheroe's Dawsons department store bosses, refuting Mr Paul's claims saying he given details of the plans in April.

It has been proposed that the ground floor and basement storey form a retail outlet to ‘supplement’ and ‘enhance’ the existing business of the department store.

In the planning statement, the applicant proposes to change the first and second floors of the main building and the rear out-building into self-contained apartments.

Mr Paul, who has been manager of the Old Post House Hotel for five years said he still has five years left on his lease.

He said:“I think it’s disgusting the way this has been handled.

“Dawson’s have not spoken to me about any of this.

“The town council approached me and put the application notice on the front of the hotel.

“I wish there was more transparency on Dawson’s part.

“I should be the first to know about something like this.

“If it all goes wrong I will end up homeless.”

Simon Dawson, who is a director at R E Dawson LTD including Dawsons department store also in King Street, said: “We put some plans together that are not concrete at the moment for the property, which is something that Dawson may look at extending it in that unit.

“We made it clear in our outlined proposal that we are keeping our options on the table.

“We spoke to the manager of the Post House back in April and explained our plans.

“The company could not have been any more transparent than we were back in April.

“We told them straight away that we are looking at going and getting plans drawn up to see if is something we can do to the property in the future.

“We are looking at what we are doing.

“It takes time to get to this point.”

Councillors will make a decision on the plans in due course.