Preston’s former railway hotel to be restored

As a local firm based in Preston, we take an interest in what happens on our own doorstep.

We were pleased to read in Lancashire Business View that one of Preston’s most iconic landmarks was set to be restored. The former Park Hotel, which overlooks Avenham and Miller Parks, is to be brought back by two Lancashire companies — Cassidy and Ashton and Frank Whittle Partnership, both of Preston themselves.

Plans submitted to Lancashire County Council’s development committee would turn what are now offices back into a 156-bedroom four-star hotel, with a new spa, banqueting pavilion and offices alongside. The pair described the aim as reviving the golden age of railway hotels.

The 3.3-acre complex first opened in 1882 as the grandly titled London and North Western and Lancashire and Yorkshire Hotel, with subways connecting guests directly to the platforms of Preston railway station.

Where this connects to your pension

Here is the part that caught our attention. Cassidy and Ashton acted as architects and FWP as project managers, working for Local Pensions Partnership — a collaboration between Lancashire County Council and the London Pensions Fund Authority, which between them managed some £16bn of pension assets.

Do you know where your pension is actually invested?

Most people do not and it is worth knowing. Pension money is invested across an extremely wide range of assets — shares, bonds, property and infrastructure among them — and in this case some of it was going into a building a few minutes from our office.

That is not a recommendation and it is not a comment on the merits of any particular fund. It is simply a reminder that a pension is not an abstraction sitting in a drawer. It owns things and it is worth understanding what.

If you would like to find out

If you are Preston or Lancashire based and want to see where your pension is invested and what options are open to you, we are happy to review your situation. The first conversation costs nothing.