Whitbread, the owner of the Premier Inn and hub by Premier Inn hotel brands, is reopening 35 construction sites in England and Wales as the business focuses on safely continuing building work on its pipeline of new hotels.
The sites under construction include newbuild hotels led by Whitbread’s in-house construction team or by external development partners, as well as extensions to existing Premier Inn hotels. They account for more than 4,500 rooms Premier Inn and hub by Premier Inn rooms scheduled to open from 2020 up to the end of the 2022-23 financial year.
Over recent weeks, Whitbread’s development team has been working closely with its construction partners in England and Wales to put in place additional measures on construction sites to protect site workers and the general public and ensure social distancing. The measures and new ways of working follow the latest government and Construction Leadership Council guidelines.
Alex Flach, UK Development Director at Whitbread, said, “The health and safety of our workers and the local communities where we work is always our top priority, and this is more essential now than ever.
'The UK Government and the devolved administrations have been clear that construction activity is vital for the economy to bounce back. So, we have been focusing on putting in place additional controls at Whitbread-owned sites and working closely with our external development partners to ensure we can operate safely and in line with latest industry guidance.
“Despite the challenges currently facing the hospitality industry, our ambition to continue to grow the Premier Inn and hub by Premier Inn brands has not changed. That starts with making progress with our construction sites across the country and bringing new hotels to the locations our customers want them.”
With the Scottish Government moving to the first phase of its six-phase plan out of lockdown on 28th May, Whitbread is also preparing to resume work at its four construction sites in Scotland, including sites in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Thurso in the Scottish Highlands. This is with a view to restarting construction work later this month once the Scottish Government confirms it is safe to do so.
Whitbread opened more than 2,300 new Premier Inn and hub by Premier Inn bedrooms in the UK during the 2019-20 financial year, expanding its total national network to 821 hotels, and is continuing to grow its estate with more than 13,000 bedrooms in its secured development pipeline in the UK and Ireland.
Outside of the UK, Whitbread has an open and committed pipeline of almost 10,000 bedrooms in Germany across 52 hotels. The business opened 10 Premier Inn hotels across Germany in May, bringing the total network of Premier Inn hotels in the country to 16, and expects to open a total of 20 hotels in Germany by the end of 2020.