Plans to turn an empty office building into a 36-bed hotel have been approved.

Gloucester City Council has given permission to ASBG Global Ltd to transform the former Ecclesiastical office at Beaufort House in Brunswick Road.

The new hotel will create 43 full-time city centre jobs and reinstate the building's historic features.

The building is a three-storey (plus basement) Grade II listed building on the corner of Beaufort Road and Spa Road, part of an early 19th century terraced row.

It is currently laid out as a series of offices and meeting rooms, with a large commercial kitchen and canteen on the ground floor.

The building has 1593sq m of gross internal floorspace. The ground floor/ lower ground floor will provide hotel office accommodation, storage and plant room space, a kitchen and two dining areas for hotel guests

The site is accessed from upper ground floor/ first floor level, which will provide the reception area, the residents' lounge and bar area and 10 bedrooms.

The second floor will have 14 bedrooms and the third floor will have 12 bedrooms.

The historic fabric of the building will be retained, with internal sub-division kept to a minimum and external works limited to making good. Some original features will be reinstated, including cornices and skirting, while modern internal partitions, modern doors and suspended ceilings will be removed.

Beaufort House has been largely vacant since Ecclesiastical moved out in early 2021, apart from ASBG Global using it in a very limited capacity as satellite office space. Before the planning application to turn it into a hotel was submitted, it was marketed unsuccessfully for continued office use.

A related planning application, to turn the 1970s extension of the building into 67 flats was turned down earlier this year. According to agent Stokes Morgan Planning, it is seen as a 'negative building' intruding on the 19th century character of Brunswick Road and detracting from the appearance of the conservation area.

Under the terms of the planning permission, work will begin on the new hotel by the start of October 2028.