Plans to build a new 186-room South Bank hotel have been blocked over concerns the area is overrun hotels.
Lambeth councillors said there were already enough places for tourists to stay nearby and the area desperately needed more houses and cheap office space instead.
They were also worried the proposed fourteen-storey building opposite Lambeth North Tube station was too tall and would harm views of a nearby Grade II listed Lincoln Tower, built in memory of ex-US president Abraham Lincoln.
Developer North Lambeth Holding BV had planned to include one floor of offices in the building, as well as a basement gym.
The proposals would have redeveloped a mostly empty site on Westminster Bridge Road, previously used to store tour vehicles.
Councillor Scott Ainslie, co-leader of Lambeth’s Green Party group, said there were already seventeen hotels within 500 metres of the site and questioned the need for more.
He told a council planning meeting on July 25: “The mix of what’s available in the area and the over saturation of hotel space when we need more residential use, that’s a bit of a concern.”
Cllr Ainslie, member for Streatham St Leonard’s, added: “I think I diverge from the conservation officer in terms of saying the building would facilitate the view of Lincoln Tower. I see it as detracting from it. You wouldn’t have put a hotel like that in front of Big Ben.”
Joanne Simpson, Labour councillor for Stockwell West and Larkhall, said the building should have included more cheap offices and less hotel rooms.
She said: “There is an identified need for affordable office space. I appreciate this application doesn’t meet the threshold to provide that affordable workspace. It should.
“The reason it isn’t is because the space has been taken up by a hotel… Why could there not be less hotel, more office?”
But Martin Bailey, Labour councillor for Vauxhall, said the economic boost the building would give the local area was enough reason to approve it.
He said: “I’m convinced by the public economic benefits… and that for me mitigates the concerns I have otherwise.”
There are already four hotels providing 826 rooms within 50 metres of the site.
These are: Park Plaza Waterloo on Hercules Road and Point A Hotel, Horse and Stables and Marlin Waterloo, all on Westminster Bridge Road.
In September 2022, Lambeth councillors approved plans to allow Waterloo Hub Hotel, which is a four minutes walk away, to build a fourteen-storey extension with 193 extra rooms.
Overall councillors voted 4:3 against the new hotel at a meeting on July 25.
Cllr Joanne Simpson and Cllr Scott Ainslie voted against the plans, along with Cllr Jessica Leigh, Labour member for Clapham East and Cllr Malcolm Clarke, Labour member for Streatham Wells.
Cllr Martin Bailey, as well as John-Paul Ennis, Labour member for Brixton North, and Cllr Saleha Jaffer, Labour member for St. Martin’s voted in favour of the plans.
