A NOTORIOUS eyesore area will be replaced by a striking seafront vista as a new hotel takes shape.

Work is progressing on the £7million Premier Inn being built on the former gasworks site in Eastern Esplanade.

The hotel is expected to be finished by early 2015, slightly later then scheduled, but will create 65 jobs and boast 80 rooms.

The high-profile site has been a wasteland since the gasworks were demolished, but Premier Inn, which has been looking at the site since 2011, got planning permission a year ago.

Labour’s Anne Jones, who reperesents Kursaal ward, where the hotel sits, said: “It will help create a new vista on the seafront, and residents’ views will be massively enhanced, having been subjected to an eyesore for so long.”

It represents the latest in a clutch of developments in Eastern Esplanade, including the plush new steak and lobster restaurant, Bourgee, as well as plans to extend the nearby Sealife Centre.

Richard Gladwin, who runs the adjacent mini-golf Arnold Palmer Putting Course, and the Wish You Were Here kiosk, said: “This has been a long time coming and should attract more people to this side of town.”

The package from Premier Inn also includes a Brewers Fayre pub and 69 parking spaces. Work started in earnest in May.

Judith McMahon, also a Labour councillor for Kursaal, has long campaigned for action on the site. She said: “This proposal has created a buoyancy in this part of Southend, with a look of good developments happening there, with businesses really pleased.”

Despite the opening date slipping, John Bates, head of acquisitions for Premier Inn’s owner, Whitbread Hotels and Restaurants, said: ”We are making good progress on our 80-bedroom Premier Inn on Eastern Esplanade. We are looking forward to opening in early 2015.”

Premier Inn claims it had to delay the opening because it had to wait for the site’s previous owner to demolish an office block, holding up the land’s sale.