Time could finally be running out for the Imperial Hotel, on Central Promenade, Douglas.

Burnbrae Limited has applied (18/00074/B) for planning permission and registered building consent (18/00075/CON) to demolish the building and clear the site.

The hotel falls within the Douglas Promenades Conservation Area Order 2002 and because of a clause in the Town and Country Planning Act (1999) regarding being attached to a building not being demolished, in this case the adjoining St Helier, planning permission is required.

The plans include temporary support of the St Helier, to provide a hard core infill below existing lower ground level to allow for future development of the site and the retention of an exterior fence.

A previous application for the building to be demolished was submitted in 2013, though was later withdrawn despite a structural assessment of the building.

The assessment, carried out in January 2013, said the former hotel was ’in a dangerous condition and should be demolished without delay’.

Since the hotel closed, it had been used to train police sniffer dogs but has now lain empty and unused for a number of years.

The Department of Infrastructure said that the pedestrian crossing on the promenade has been ’temporarily removed for a few months whilst the Imperial Hotel demolition works are being carried out by Island Drainage & Groundworks’.

Historian Peter Kelly told the Isle of Man Examiner some highlights of the history of the hotel.

’The Imperial was built in 1891 from Ruabon brick brought from Wales and was originally two hotels in the one building,’ he said.

’The hotel had its heyday arguably in the 1930s when it was run by the Kiddie family, who had a shop fitting business in Blackpool, they gave the hotel an internal makeover, made it into one hotel and brought it in line with the height of 1930s taste.

’In the 1960s it was owned by Mrs Stringer who also had a ladies’ hairdressers and a farm just outside of Douglas which supplied the hotel with all of its milk, her husband I believe also ran a tobacco wholesaler.

’In its final years the Imperial Hotel was run by Mrs Bell and Mrs Birch who were sisters.

’It then closed in 2006 and for a few years, the police used it to train sniffer dogs.’