A luxury hotel has submitted renovation plans that would see more rooms added inside its listed building.

The Hunton Park Hotel in Essex Lane, near Leavesden, wants to boost its offering from 60 rooms to 70 and change the internal layout. 

Refurbishment works would also include repairing damaged walls and ceilings, which the planning statement says will allow for better long-term conservation of the site.

Please support our independent journalism, and get access to exclusive news and sport stories, by signing up to a Watford Observer digital subscription today.

Conference and ancillary rooms would become the new bedrooms and other changes would be made to support this, including installing ventilation and air conditioning.

According to the statement, conference rooms are much less valuable for hotels since the pandemic as many are now held online.

The hotel is a grade II* listed building, putting it among the top 10% of the most important listed buildings in the country, which means there are greater restrictions on any changes.

This includes the additional planning hurdle of requiring listed building consent before any changes are made to make sure they are appropriate and sympathetic to the building’s character.

The site has been a hotel since the late 1980s.

As an example of the site’s long-running history of large events, the application mentions a do held for the Crown Prince of Arabia in 1935.