I was also there on Sunday, last time for a while I think. The changes being made to the hotel are substantial, including conversion of the entire first floor into bedrooms, moving the restaurant and lounge to the basement and knocking through into the neighbouring shop which is where the new bar will be located. Further new bedrooms are being added on the sixth floor and roof, and a couple more in the basement levels - it's about 80 new rooms in total. The gym is to be much reduced in size.

I always thought this hotel should have been better than it actually is for the prices they now charge (mainly due to lacklustre bar and lounge, tired-looking rooms and uninterested / incompetent reception staff) so hopefully a big upgrade will improve things. I wonder if the existing rooms will be refreshed at the same time as the new ones are added. Looks like it's back on sale from September, so presumably it will be complete enough to allow reopening by then, if not fully complete.

Edit: I was told 150 new rooms but it looks like around 80 from the planning applications. Re: closures, it looks unavailable to book in July and August but I'm not sure if it's just sold out / running at reduced capacity, or fully closed. Perhaps somebody else is more in the know.