Former Bay Hotel on Teignmouth seafront cleared for aparthotel use

17 September 2026

Teignbridge District Council has granted planning permission to turn the former Bay Hotel on Powderham Terrace into a professionally managed aparthotel. The Grade II listed block at number 15 has stood empty on the Den seafront since 2017.

The consent, application 26/00241/FUL, is for serviced visitor units rather than permanent homes. Stays would run from one night to several weeks, aimed at tourists and people in town for work. A management company would take bookings and run the building off-site. Work has to start within three years. Teignmouth Town Council raised no objection.

The hotel is the right-hand end of Powderham Terrace, the mid-nineteenth-century Italianate row that faces The Den. Historic England listed the terrace, Marina Court and the hotel together in 1972. Local accounts put the build around 1869 for the Earl of Devon.

Painted stucco, sash windows and cornices still mark the front. What neighbours have had to live with for nine years is an unused listed hotel on the best frontage in town.

The last operator, former barrister Shirley Bothroyd, was convicted in 2017 of assaults on staff and a police officer. The hotel shut and did not reopen. By 2019 councillors were talking about compulsory purchase. Alison Eden told colleagues the building was “fast falling into decay and dilapidation” and “a poor advert” for Teignmouth. It was sold in November 2021 for more than £1 million.

An early scheme for nine aparthotel rooms, submitted for Brian Jones, was withdrawn in 2022. Later listed-building applications for seven units produced a mix of refusals and one consent.

The new design and access statement calls the works “sympathetic, minimal, and carefully considered”. The interior would be remodelled as self-contained rooms. External changes are meant to tidy the elevations and restore symmetry without losing the features that earn the listing.

Permission is not a start date. Until the scaffolding goes up, the block at the end of the terrace will look as it has since the last guests left.