Canterbury’s foremost artist says the proposed hotel for St Margaret’s Street will help celebrate the city’s most important building and has labelled opponents of it “nimbys”.

Sculptor Patrick Crouch is backing architect Guy Hollaway’s vision of a hotel with rooftop bar and restaurant on the derelict Slatters site.

He told the Kentish Gazette: “Mr Hollaway’s wish is that the roof terrace provides the best view of the cathedral possible.

“People at the terrace will be able to see it in all its splendour.

“The problem with the layout of the city’s streets is that it is often difficult to see the cathedral because of the narrow roads and three- and four-storey buildings.”

Mr Crouch, who teaches at the Kent School of Architecture at Kent University, is putting himself at odds with the Canterbury Society, which is opposed to the Hollaway scheme.

Its president Ptolemy Dean denounced Mr Hollaway as “treating Canterbury as if it were Maidstone or Ashford” and said “the problem here is the scale, mass and detail”.

The society has also said that a future replacement for the dilapidated Slatters Hotel should blend in with the rest of St Margaret’s Street.

But Mr Crouch rejects this, saying: “Building with eyes on the past is a very poor form of whitewash and pastiche.

“It’s a smear of the past rather than a contract with the future.

“All creativity is a contract with the future.

“When you make something, you hope it is unique and individual rather than being a statement of imitation.

“However, I do sympathise with the Canterbury Society because there have been some architectural disasters in the past, but I think that in this case they are against the hotel because they feel they have to be against it.”

Mr Crouch, whose father Sir David Crouch was the Conservative MP for Canterbury between 1966 and 1987, added: “Slatters is a ruin right now. It’s as if the nimbys against the hotel want to sustain that.

“Mr Hollaway’s building is going to be a destination, it’s going to be a venue, it’s going to be a place to meet. It’s got to be a bit jazzy.”

Plans for the new hotel have been submitted to Canterbury City Council and are due to be considered by its planning committee later in the year.