ROUGIER Street isn't exactly the prettiest part of York. And on Friday and Saturday nights it can attract rowdy drunks. Anything that can be done to improve this quarter of the city has to be good news.

So we welcome the fact that the owners of the Grand Hotel – formerly the Cedar Court – have bought Roman House, the former Aviva building which fronts on to Rougier Street.

The Splendid Hospitality Group has paid an undisclosed sum for the building, and aims to use it to extend the Grand itself – doubling the hotel in size as part of a £15 million investment.

This is a clear vote of confidence in York by the company which owns the city's only five-star hotel.

York has plenty of mid-level and budget hotels. But the city has long-needed more top-end hotel accommodation to cement its reputation as one of the world's best cities for visitors of all income brackets.

If this scheme goes ahead, it will be a big step towards achieving that. Splendid are talking about creating more than 100 new five-star bedrooms.

That would be just the ticket, says the city's tourism bureau Visit York.

"These plans would double the rooms we're able to offer for visitors seeking a five star hotel experience," said Visit York head Kate McMullen. "We're confident this will prove extremely popular with visitors."

If redevelopment of Roman House as an extra wing to the Grand also improves Rougier Street, that will be an added bonus.