THE OWNER of the Albert Hotel in North Queensferry has revealed his plans to reopen the historic hotel.

Kenny Waugh has told the Press that he will be seeking for planning permission to move the bar into the basement area and reopen the venue as a hotel, restaurant and bar after he was refused planning permission to turn the building into residential units.

He said: "We tried to change it to residential, but we got refused planning on the grounds that North Queensferry would be losing a local pub and restaurant and they didn't want the village to lose that. So we've come up with new plans.

"The bar and restaurant are on the ground floor with the kitchen and toilets down the stairs at basement level, but for that to work nowadays it really all needs to be on the same level so we've decided that we'll apply for planning to move the bar into the basement. By putting it in the basement it makes it a lot bigger, and we can have the bar, restaurant and beer terrace all at the one level.

"That also provides us with disabled access to the downstairs with a lift down, and disabled toilets. Upstairs are eight bedrooms that we're converting into four suits which will be five-star bedroom suites suitable for big families or groups of golfers."

This new proposed layout is vital to Kenny's business plan as it would also make the venue much easier to staff. Instead of needing three separate teams over the two levels running their own areas, one larger team would be able to run the whole operation.

Kenny continued: "It just works for us on ground level. With rising staff costs, you can't have your bar on one level, your kitchen on another and the restaurant in a different room. It all needs to be controlled with one set of staff instead of two or three sets.

"All costs are rising so we've had to adapt it and it works."

He believes that this will help them restore the feel of the pub, bringing back the same spirit it once had. Another element he hopes will make this project a success is the funds they are investing in upgrading the building.

"We're spending quite a lot of money on the building, repairing all the stonework and putting it back to its former glory, the building's roof and stonework, we're going to do all of it," he added.

The hotel closed its doors in 2017, after nearly 200 years of operations. Kenny originally had hopes of changing the use of the building and converting the Albert Hotel into four flats but after many objections, the plans were turned down by Fife Council in August 2022. An appeal was then tabled but it too was dismissed in January of this year.

Kenny said: "It's been frustrating in the sense that, with Covid, there's so many pubs that have been closing in Scotland. With the downturn in business due to the pandemic and rising costs, a lot of pubs have found it difficult to survive so it made sense for it to be residential and that would have benefited the building.

"It was more about things that would have worked financially to save the building and bring it back to its glory, whether that would have been flats or a hotel.

"Now that we're not allowed flats, we think we can still make it work as a hotel."