萝莉原创

Whitbread has planning permission to turn a nine-story building near London鈥檚 South Bank into a Premier Inn.

Dorset House, a 90,000 sq ft former office building on Stamford Street in Southwark SE1, is to become 421-bedroom Premier Inn hotel.

Whitbread acquired the freehold in May 2025 and quickly began conversations with Southwark Council on the change of use. The intention is to add bedrooms within the existing floorplate and introduce a new hotel entrance on Stamford Street, with the basement-level F&B space visible through cut-out concrete sections on the ground-floor.聽

Construction work is expected to begin in the second half of 2026 with a target date for opening in summer 2028.

The permission rounds off an active 2025 for Whitbread in central London where it has acquired four Premier Inn development sites since January, collectively adding nearly 1,000 bedrooms and more than 262,000 sq ft of development space.

The other three sites are:

• 35 Red Lion Square, WC1
• Phoenix House, SW8
• Victory House, WC2

Collectively the four acquisitions this year total more than 拢100m of direct investment.聽

Whitbread senior acquisition manager Jonathan Langdon said: 鈥淲hitbread鈥檚 reliable and affordable hotels are ingrained in London life and we鈥檙e taking full advantage of opportunities to expand our network further for our guests.

鈥淭he buildings we have acquired in 2025 bring four outstanding hotel locations into our secured pipeline in places where we are either not yet represented or are responding to strong, year-round demand from our customers.

鈥淎ll four acquisitions demonstrate Whitbread鈥檚 ability to spot and convert excellent opportunities to grow our business, deploy capital strategically, and work through planning risks to successfully grow our estate.

鈥淎chieving planning permission at Dorset House rounds off an especially active period for Whitbread鈥檚 Central London team in 2025, and we are moving quickly to progress our pipeline hotels into construction and onto trading as soon as possible.鈥�

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