Before the world faced a much larger crisis in the form of Covid-19, Carlisle experienced its own crisis that changed the face of the city.
Demolition of the former Central Plaza Hotel on Victoria Viaduct, in the heart of Carlisle’s city centre, was completed in March, mere weeks before the city and the nation were plunged into lockdown by the emerging Covid-19 pandemic.
The arrival of the lockdown perhaps overshadowed somewhat the significance of the completed demolition works – the close in a chapter of the city’s history that had brought some major turbulence to residents and businesses alike.
The former hotel’s story is long, and the reason it was able to fall into such disrepair is complicated.
Closing in 2004, the company that owned the hotel was dissolved, leaving it without a legal owner.
Under law, property not owned by anyone passes to the Crown Estate, but legally speaking the body did not own the former hotel in a conventional sense, and it was instead in a state of legal limbo called escheat.
So the building fell into a state of disrepair, with Carlisle City Council only able to carry out necessary works to keep it safe.
This involved closing down Victoria Viaduct in 2018 for two months to carry out emergency work – a glimpse of what was to come the following year.
In October 2019, the building was for a final time declared unsafe. Roadblocks were erected and businesses along Victoria Viaduct were evacuated.
This time the expert engineering opinion concluded that the only way to make it safe was to tear it down.
And so demolition works began the following month, and by the beginning of March they had been fully completed.
Now, the council is looking towards what the now empty site could become.
It is weighing up the £9.1m grant awarded this week from the Government's Future High Streets Fund for regeneration projects on the city’s high streets – and part of those plans involve resurrecting the former Central Plaza as a brand new hotel.
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