22-05-2025
Premier Inn approved for Dorchester town centre M&S site
Plans to demolish a former town centre Marks and Spencer store and replace it with a hotel have been M&S store in Dorchester's South Street closed in February 2020 and its building fell into which purchased the site in 2023, has been granted permission to build a 102-bedroom Premier Inn, which would be within the town's conservation company, which already has a Premier Inn in nearby Brewery Square, said the new hotel would bring £3m to the local economy.
The site is currently made up of two buildings - one was built in the 1930s to replace the previous Marks and Spencer shop was later extended into the adjoining Victorian building in the construction in 1936, workmen found what became known as the Dorchester Hoard - a cache of 22,000 Roman coins buried in the foundations of a Roman new hotel would have entrances both on South Street and Trinity Council's planning officer's report acknowledged that "demand for a continued retail unit utilising the same floor area is very limited in the current market and in this location".
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