A LONG running row between a hotel owner and councillors looks set to be over after it was agreed to demolish the building.

Colne's controversial Hendly Hotel will now be replaced with homes after councillors granted planning permission for the development despite being recommended to throw out the plans.

The decision will bring to an end the feud between owner Bernard Collins and Pendle Council, who have been at loggerheads for years.

The hotel was used by local authorities across the North West to rehouse people with various problems, often leading to conflict with locals and councillors in Colne.

But the owners always claimed they were providing a valuable service and without them, many more people would have ended up on the streets.

Mr Collins, 60, who once claimed the council was trying to run him out of the town, said he would move out in the next few weeks when the paperwork was completed.

He said: "I am very happy about the decision and for once we all agreed on something.

"Once we have a completion date we will be moving, I am not sure where yet but I would imagine out of Pendle."

Mr Collins will now sell the Queen Street hotel he has owned for 17 years for £440,000 to Nelson-based Waterfords Ltd. It will be replaced with a terrace of seven two-storey houses fronting Brown Street West and two three-storey blocks of apartments looking on to Queen Street and Princess Street.

Last month Mr Collins was fined for three breaches of noise abatement and had previously been ordered to carry out £20,000 of fire safety work.

Despite the hotel being on the authority's list of problem site, councillors were originally recommended to refuse the scheme because officers said it did not meet the planning needs, but changed their minds after meetings with Mr Collins.

Council leader Coun Alan Davies said: "The planning application was passed because there was a regeneration opportunity too good to be missed.

"Not only the building but the area had become tired. It had extensions on the site that had been built with asbestos.

"The site benefits from being cleared and homes built."