Five-star hotel unveiled for Chelsea Barracks site

A 90-bedroom five-star hotel will be built on the corner of Pimlico Road and Chelsea Bridge Road as part of the new plans for the Chelsea Barracks site.

There will also be a water feature running the length of Chelsea Bridge Road inside existing railings, reflecting the course of the river Westbourne which once ran through the area.

Details of the £2.5 billion scheme were revealed to local residents whose furious opposition to the earlier plan by Lord Rogers led to its demise. It has also emerged that developer Qatari Diar now proposes to build more than half of the "affordable" flats on an adjoining site.

Of a total of about 500 houses and flats, half will be for private sale. In addition, some 120 affordable flats will be built in blocks, mainly along Chelsea Bridge Road.

But the rest, a further 130 affordable homes, are planned for a building at Grosvenor Waterside, an adjacent site on the other side of Ebury Bridge Road which Qatari Diar is in the process of buying. Moving more than a quarter of the units elsewhere has made possible the creation of traditional streets, garden squares and mews-style houses in keeping with the traditional neighbourhood.

James Wright, chairman of the Belgravia Residents' Association added, "What we have here now illustrates the care and attention taken in sifting community feedback, and we hope this will continue."