If you were paying good money to stay in a hotel, you’d probably be a tad upset if the company decided to erect scaffolding at 07:00 on a Sunday morning.
Premier Inn London Euston started early this week. Scaffolding has gone up, and many people were upset at the hotel management for not feeling it decent to warn neighbours that they’ve got some work going on, that may be noisy and disruptive, and at a time when the building site just next to the hotel wouldn’t dream of making noise.
It may have a reputation as a cheap hotel – somewhere you can stay that isn’t expensive, and luxury isn’t an option. We all know that. The purple colour is to deceive you that you’re getting royal treatment, I presume. That doesn’t mean Whitbread, who operate Premier Inn, don’t have a responsibility to the local community.
Next time you choose a hotel, if you want a hotel with a good track record in community relations, don’t try Premier Inn.
It’s not like I haven’t tried to engage with the hotel. Back in 2008 I contacted them about the over-use of their car park. For a space legally permitted to have 16 vehicles, they would cram in 30. After a little digging I found that their car park had not been laid out in the way they had been bound to in a planning application. The Council had to get involved to force the hotel to re-paint their lines.
After the re-working of the car park, I gave them six months. Their delivery lorries would still reverse up or down their access ramp. Now, that wouldn’t be a major thing, but reversing down a ramp, around a corner, and into a car park is not something I’d want to do. I wouldn’t really want to be reversing a large lorry up a ramp, and around another corner, just a few yards from an outdoor coffee shop’s seating area.
The management has changed in the last 12 months, but the previous manager (now managing the Kensington High Street Premier Inn) was not the most responsive, was quick to blame anyone but Premier Inn, and had no obvious understanding of how to operate a car park safely. On one occasion when we raised these safety points to him, he retorted that if we were so interested in safety maybe we could perform some tasks which really aren’t in our remit as neighbours, and would be best placed being dealt with by a fully trained Council official. Quite insulting, when the response you’re hoping for is “oh yes, we’ll look into that.”
Health & Safety had to get involved on that one, and the car park usage did calm down for a while. You can’t teach a big company new tricks, it would seem, and once again they’ve been back to their old tricks – the car park can have 25 cars on occasion. Premier Inn London Euston charge £20 per night for their car park – they’ve made up to £180 extra per night than they are legally allowed to. Sometimes the car park is so full that fire exits from the hotel are blocked. That includes the fire exits from bedrooms specifically equipped for the disabled.
Of course, I contacted the hotel, but nothing has happened. The hotel use four main contractors, who seem to be unruly and uncontrollable, from what Premier Inn tell me.
- Kuehne & Nagel deliver their food and other logistical items including milk for their Costa Coffee
- Sunlight deliver their laundry
- Geesink Norba collect their refuse
- DHL Tradeteam deliver the beer for the bar
Unruly? Uncontrollable? Yes. I’ve been telling the hotel of their issues for 24 months now. For 24 months Premier Inn and Whitbread have blamed their supply partners unequivocally.
Come on Whitbread, it’s not difficult to run your business with minimal disturbance to the community. Try giving it a go sometime, you might be surprised how friendly people can be when you try.
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