Premier Inn ‘extremely concerned’ about Grenfell-type cladding on its hotels

Hotel chain Premier Inn is “extremely concerned” about the aluminium cladding used on three of its hotels.

In the wake of the fire that devastated Grenfell Tower in West London last week, the hotel chain told BBC Newsnight that three of its properties – Maidenhead, Brentford and Tottenham – did not “appear to meet the required fire standards”

However it did clarify that the cladding used on its hotels is thought to have been made with a less flammable product than the one used on the Grenfell tower.

It said its developers were responsible for the materials used in the construction of the buildings.

A spokesperson for Premier Inn told the BBC: “We are extremely concerned to learn that they had used a cladding that does not appear to comply with recognised government guidance of compliance with the Building Regulations for use in high rise buildings and are seeking to address this with the developers.”

It went on to say that an independent expert had insisted that the buildings were safe to stay open and it had met their “robust” safety measures.

A spokesperson for the chain also told Hotel Owner: “The safety and security of our guests and team members is our number one priority. We have been assured by an independent fire expert that all our hotels are safe to operate and that we have robust fire safety measures and evacuation procedures in place to protect our guests and teams.

“These include sophisticated fire detectors and fire alarms in every single bedroom; all bedroom doors are fire resisting and self-closing to prevent fire spreading; all corridors are sub-divided by fire resistant doors; our hotels have multiple means of escape, and our well trained teams evacuate a hotel at the first sign of fire.

They added: “We can confirm that the cladding on these hotels is not the same as the cladding used on Grenfell Towers.”