UK: Whitbread PLC, owner of Premier Inn, has purchased a consented hotel development site in Manchester in the city’s Northern Quarter.
The acquisition from Premcor is on Rochdale Road (CGI of the property centre of image above), and has planning permission for a 229-bedroom hotel over ten storeys.
Whitbread is anticipated to appoint GMI Construction Group to build the hotel for its Premier Inn brand with construction work expected to commence this summer.
The construction specification is expected to achieve BREEAM Very Good as a minimum standard and when Sustainable Hotel News asked if the new hotel, being a freehold development, might be all-electric like the Swindon Premier Inn, a spokesperson said more details would be released in time.
Whitbread has committed to the following on its environmental impact.
- Reduce scope 1 and 2 emissions by 99.6 per cent by 2040;
- Reduce scope 3 emissions by 90 per cent by 2050;
- Reduce water use by 20 per cent per hotel guest by 2030;
- Cut water consumption by 20 per cent per guest by 2030;
- Cut food waste in half by 2030;
- Whitbread uses 100 per cent renewable electricity across owned and operated sites within the UK and Germany;
- 20 per cent of UK hotels have solar panels;
- Whitbread has been minimising the use of single-use plastics, becoming the first hotel group to stop the use of plastic straws and stirrers, and has never used miniature shower products. In order to remove single-use plastic completely, it is working with suppliers to “innovate and drive change.”
Paul Smith, property acquisition manager for Whitbread, said: “Our investment in the Rochdale Road development site brings another 229-bedrooms into our secured development pipeline in a part of the city centre we wish to expand our presence.”
Whitbread joined the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance in 2022.
Image: CGI supplied