The Grand Hotel, Scarborough: North Yorkshire mayoral candidate Keane Duncan pledges to 'buy and save' Victorian hotel named one of Britain's worst

Conservative hopeful Keane Duncan today released a video launching his campaign to ‘wrestle’ the Grand Hotel from its owners Britannia if he is succesful in the York and North Yorkshire mayoral polls.

Built in 1867, the Grand is an emblem of Scarborough’s heyday as an upmarket Victorian pleasure resort, and its illustrious guests have included King Edward VIII and Winston Churchill. However, in recent years it has been the subject of complaints over its poor condition, prompting the former Scarborough Council to seek a meeting with Britannia about its future.

In a video released on his social media channels, Mr Duncan said he would use ‘new mayoral powers and funding’ and would even consider compulsory purchase laws to enable him to seize the Grade II-listed building if he failed to negotiate a sale.

Mr Duncan told supporters that the Grand’s regeneration was vital to the ‘renaissance’ of Scarborough and that the seafront hotel had become symbolic of the town’s ‘rise and struggles’.

The Grand has become notorious for the poor TripAdvisor reviews it has received in recent years, with many guests commenting on the lack of cleanliness in the rooms and its ‘tatty’ interiors. Yorkshire Post contributor Andrew Vine described the state of its once-famous palm court and other dining areas as ‘pitiful’ during a visit in 2021, when he called for the building to be brought into public hands.

The Britannia chain also bought another Victorian statement hotel, the Midland in Bradford, last year. The company has owned the Grand since 2004, but it started to be marketed as budget accommodation in the 1970s, when it was acquired by Butlins.

Until World War Two, it was patronised almost exclusively by wealthy clientele, and its early managers were recruited from the finest Parisian establishments. There was a longstanding link with the Scarborough Cricket Festival, with staff serving refreshments to the players.

The Grand was hit around 30 times during the German naval bombardment of Scarborough in 1914, and the writer Osbert Sitwell, whose literary family had a summer home in the resort, even wrote a novel about the events at the hotel that night.

The building was requisitioned by the RAF during World War Two.