Vacant Worthing building to become modern eco hotel

In what will be a million pound project, 37 Richmond Road has been revitalised to provide nine guest accommodation rooms with related facilities. The site – originally built as a grand wash house – will be returned to its 1910 civic stature.

Known as SLEEP, the hotel will combine a carbon neutral business providing tourism and employment whilst also ‘restoring and protecting’ the building for ‘many future generations’.

The man behind the idea is restaurateur Andy Sparsis, who is the director of the Worthing Town Centre Initiative.

Andy said: “It’s a beautiful building which we are rescuing and otherwise would have been lost. We are restoring it back to its former glory.

"I’ve had this idea for ages and we’ve got a good chance to change tourism. We chose Worthing for this project – it’s a good town with great people.”

Andy said Worthing has a ‘lack of alternative accommodation’, adding: “Tourism suffers because it doesn’t encourage enough of the newer type of travellers.

"I believe Worthing has got brilliant offers for accomodation, great hotels and great B&Bs. We are not trying to compete with them.

"We want to fill in the gaps and be part of that great group of people. We are hoping to bring people to Worthing that wouldn’t usually come because the accomodation they want isn’t there. That’s what we’re proud of.”

SLEEP was described in the planning documents as a carbon neutral accommodation model for active travellers. The eco inn will host nine luxury short stay accommodation rooms – ‘interchangeable to accommodate a wide variety of visitors’. No visible structural changes have been proposed – ‘only enhancements, decorations and restorations’.

Rooms will be fitted with ‘habitat monitoring sensors’, which will assess room temperatures and make sure empty rooms are not heated or cooled.

"SLEEP will attract visitors that are looking for alternative accommodation more suited to their lifestyle,” the plans read.

"At SLEEP we will be engaging with the local jobs market to recruit an energetic hospitality and media aware team. Employees will benefit from more flexible working with our ‘childcare while you work’ policies and team shift changing allowing staff to move and swap shifts with other employees at short notice.

"We also work with local education providers to offer training on a wide range of BTEC courses allowing staff to train and acquire qualification while working.”

SLEEP will also add extra employment to the local economy. The plans added: “From local cafés providing breakfast, bakery’s producing beach picnics to Marmalade Bikes providing great adventures. Working with local independence business will add good consistent trade all year round to small business.”