Premier Inn secures eight sites for new hotels

UK hotel chain Premier Inn has secured eight new sites in a single week as it pushes ahead with a major national expansion programme. The purchases, which comprise a mixture of office-to-hotel conversions, developer turnkey and new build schemes, will create 340,000 sq ft of new hotel and restaurant space and add a total of 774-bedrooms to Premier Inn’s portfolio. The new sites are in locations across the country. Three new hotels are being added within London and the M25, an area the company views as a key growth area. The new sites have a total capitalised lease value of more than £50m and will create approximately 400 new jobs on opening. Developments include: · Beverley – 79-bedroom Premier Inn as part of the Flemingate regeneration scheme. · Bromley – a 130-bedroom Premier Inn at Westmoreland Road, part of the Bromley South Central regeneration scheme. · Catterick – a 60-bedroom Premier Inn and Brewers Fayre at Catterick Garrison (Princes Gate). · City of London – a 183-bedroom office-to-hotel conversion in EC3, just minutes from Monument underground station. · Eastbourne – a 65-bedroom conversion of the art deco former Co-Op building at Terminus Road. · Longbridge – a 75-bedroom hotel and Beefeater Grill as part of the £1bn regeneration of Longbridge town centre. · Redditch – a 62-bedroom hotel and Beefeater Grill adjacent to the Abbey Retail Park. · Sutton – a 120-bedroom Premier Inn at the Sutton Superbowl site on St Nicholas Way. Head of acquisitions for Premier Inn UK & Ireland, John Bates, said: “In this latest financial year, we have added 40 new sites to our secured pipeline which is equivalent to 1.6 million sq ft of new commercial space. “ He added that the chain intends to repeat the growth every year for the next three years to meet a target of 65,000 Premier Inn bedrooms by 2016. Premier Inn currently has approximately 47,000 bedrooms across the UK and around 10,000 bedrooms in its secured development pipeline. These deals include developer-led schemes where Premier Inn has contracted to take space for a new Premier Inn subject to planning permission being secured. Whitbread, Premier Inn’s parent company, announced in its latest trading update to the City (28 February 2012) that it is creating 10,000 new jobs in the UK over the next three years as a result of the expansion of the Costa and Premier Inn brands.