Luxury hotel brand the Dorchester Collection is to open a new 69-room country house hotel, Coworth Park, near Ascot after a suite of planning applications were approved by the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead.

Scheduled to open in 2010, Coworth Park will be the ninth property in the Collection's exclusive portfolio of hotels, which in addition to Mayfair's famous Dorchester Hotel includes the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles and Hotel Plaza Athénée in Paris.

Several of the planning applications were for certificates to confirm the lawful use of stable blocks, cottages and other secondary buildings in the grounds of the development site, which was once a polo club and a residence of the Saudi Royal family. These will now be converted into suites and leisure facilities, including an eco-luxury spa.

The development has been praised for its green credentials. Parts of the hotel will be heated by an underground biomass boiler which will be fuelled by burning willow grown on the estate.

Gwion Lewis advised the Dorchester Collection, instructed by Gregory Gray Associates.

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