A HOTEL is to build a health spa and bedroom wing in a £4m develoment.

Plans to convert a redundant coach house, stable block and agricultural buildings into a spa at the Hardwick Hall Hotel, Sedgefield, look likely to get the go-ahead from Sedgefield Borough Council's develop-ment control committee this week.

The extension involves the demolition of a cottage and the building of a bedroom wing as well as the creation of 90 car parking spaces.

Details of the project by Ramside Estates are on the agenda for councillors at the council's Green Lane offices, Spennymoor, tomorrow morning.

The three-storey bedroom wing would provide an additional nine bedrooms to the rear of the existing accommodation block.

A tunnel link has been proposed to lead from the bedroom wing to the health spa to ensure that the road leading from the A177 through the hotel site to the isolated properties to the west is retained.

The health spa would use as much of the historic fabric of the existing coach house and stable block as possible.

It will contain a 25m long swimming pool, a toddlers pool, spa, massage seat and a bar/caf separated from the pool by a glass screen.

There would also be saunas, steam rooms, aerobic studio and showers, a large gym, exercise studio and air handling room.

A spokesperson from Sedgefield Borough Council's development control department said: "The council wishes to encourage the provision of a range of hotel and visitor accommodation in the borough to meet the needs of both the leisure and business traveller.

"As the Hardwick Hall Hotel sits between the nationally important Hardwick Park and the new knowledge-based high tech Netpark, and is in close proximity to Sedgefield Racecourse, the extension of the bedroom accommodation and the proposed health spa is to be welcomed as another important step forward in the continued development and enhancement of the popular hotel venue."