A FORMER training centre in Barrow is set to be converted into a 20-bedroom hotel and restaurant.

The former Rathbone Training Centre in Abbey Road was listed for auction in May with a guaranteed reserve price of no more than £100,000 but in a last-minute twist, the building was sold just hours before the start of the sale for an undisclosed amount.

Rathbone Training closed its Barrow centres in Abbey Road and Phoenix Road last July, resulting in the loss of nine jobs.

The substantial Victorian building is arranged over four floors and totals more than 7,000 sq ft.

Plans have now been submitted to convert the building into a 20-bedroom hotel with restaurant and bar. Barrow Borough Council is yet to make a decision on the planning application.

The plans for the former Rathbone building are just one of a number of proposed hotel developments in Barrow, in a bid to take advantage of the growing shipyard workforce and number of contractors staying in the town.

The Townhouse Bar Kitchen and Rooms is a new 13-bedroom hotel, restaurant and bar set to open at the end of October, based at the bottom end of Dalton Road, in what used to be Boots.

Plans to demolish the former police station in Barrow and build a 127-bedroom Holiday Inn Express and restaurant have also been submitted to Barrow Borough Council.

READ MORE: Holiday Inn plans for Barrow

The Duke of Edinburgh in Abbey Road is set to increase the number of rooms it has by building into empty attic space in the adjacent Cooke's Building to provide an additional eight rooms.

READ MORE: Barrow hotel to undergo £300,000 expansion

Also in Barrow, a huge 240-room portable Snoozebox hotel is to be built at Woodbridge Haven, in Cavendish Dock Road.

READ MORE: Portable hotel set to come to Barrow

Meanwhile, The Crofters in Holbeck Park Avenue has been converted into the Crofters Lodge with 11 en-suite bedrooms.

Down the A590 in Ulverston, a new Premier Inn is to be built at a cost of £5m, following on from the construction in 2014 of a 62-bed hotel and restaurant in Barrow next to the Dock Museum.

READ MORE: Premier Inn to be built in Ulverston