My client takes matters of health and safety extremely seriously…

That was on the 24th March 2009. A couple of years down the line, Whitbread have changed their management in the Premier Inn [...]]]> I’m reminded of a comment by a lady called Beverley who works for Gerald Eve. They are the company that manages property for Whitbread.

My client takes matters of health and safety extremely seriously…

That was on the 24th March 2009. A couple of years down the line, Whitbread have changed their management in the Premier Inn London Euston twice now, but the same basic problems of safety still exist. The previous manager, Mark, gave us the direct line for reception so we could call if there were any problems. We do that, but we still have to keep calling back because no-one takes charge of the issues and resolves them.

I’ve been banging on at the PILE since 2008 because they have a problem with glass in their car park. When the staff empty their glass bin into their recycling bin, some inevitably falls out, but they aren’t trained sufficiently to know to sweep it up, it gets ground down to small, sharp shards of glass, and I get a puncture.

I had two this weekend, fixed one, then pumped my tyre up again this morning to get me into work, got most of the way in, but I’ll have to change the inner tube at lunchtime.

As a test, if I carry my bicycle out of their car park, I don’t get punctures. As soon as I go back to cycling through it, I get them. I asked myself if I should carry it all the time, but that’s unfair to anyone else who uses their car park. PILE should really sort themselves out in that respect.

Noise

Everyone is affected by noise in their life at one time or another. PILE generate a fair amount with their contracted-out delivery staff slamming cages around the car park, vehicles reversing because the hotel lets cars park where they like which blocks access for their deliveries. The biggest problems, by far, are the garbage crusher and the ‘new’ air-con.

The air-con emits a low-level whirring noise, akin to a helicopter passing overhead. When the fans need to stop, it emits a screech.

The garbage grinder emits a 2kHz tone, which pearces your thoughts. It’s designed to do that, it’s a warning tone, however I have stood in the car park watching the hotel staff operating the machine with this noise emitting. You would not believe how many times the hotel’s number appears on my ‘phone bill. It’s not like I’m calling them to say hello, or have a chat. Each call is a problem.

To help explain the noise, here is a recording of the garbage grinder, with a frequency analysis. That solid yellow line by 2k means it’s a very loud noise, at that frequency.

Coffee, anyone?

Now, we all know what double-yellow lines mean? No parking. And if there are double-yellow kerb markings? No loading (or unloading).

I have referred to that piece of the highway code a few times in this blog. Here it is again:

And here’s the Kuehne & Nagel delivery driver for Costa Coffee parking where he shouldn’t to unload. It’s not like there’s a whacking great car park out the back.

Lets just make sure he is unloading, otherwise he w0uld be allowed to park briefly, say if he had an emergency to deal with…

That looks like someone making a delivery to me. This is a daily occurence, not just a one-off.

It’s not just a hotel…

I’m now reminded of the licensing hearing last year, where the hotel was asking to allow outside drinking (until 1am in the morning!) and their solicitor John Gaunt said:

We’re not a budget chain, this is a premium budget hotel.

I’ve yet to see what’s premium about it. Just remember next time you stay at the Premier Inn London Euston that you’re encouraging the hotel’s management to continue this lacklustre style of dragging the hotel along by the hair.

Imagine you use a traffic route on a daily basis, and find every week you’re having to mention to the person who owns it that there’s a problem with broken glass.

It’s not like they shouldn’t know there’s broken glass there, [...]]]> I last mentioned this problem here last June, but it hasn’t gone away by any means.

Imagine you use a traffic route on a daily basis, and find every week you’re having to mention to the person who owns it that there’s a problem with broken glass.

It’s not like they shouldn’t know there’s broken glass there, as the staff walk by it every time they smoke, sort linen, crush their garbage or take deliveries in.

What is galling is that when I go into the hotel and tell them about it, nothing happens. The glass is left there in the Premier Inn hotel’s car park, the big bits of glass get crushed by vehicles into little shards, with the potential to cause more damage to tyres.

Crushed glass in the Premier Inn London Euston car park

Over the last six months alone, I’ve spent over £30 and four hours of my time dealing with punctures. Maybe I should bill the hotel on. It’s not like they aren’t aware of the broken glass strewn across their car park just where footfall is at its highest, I first emailed them about it in 2008.

Most recently, about six months ago I had a letter from the Premier Inn London Euston, denying that they would ever cause such a problem. It isn’t so much that they wouldn’t ever cause the problem, but when people deal with broken glass they don’t ever clear it up!

Back on the 26th April I popped in and met a chap called Luke from Premier Inn, and told him about the glass, I passed by it three times a day, and noticed it slowly decay to small shards. Luke hadn’t bothered to do anything about it. Common theme.

I popped in on Monday just gone, and told a chap about the broken glass. Here it is on the 9th May:

Glass left in the Premier Inn London Euston car park, 9 May 2011

And here it is on the 11th May:

The glass on 11th May 2011

Seriously, if you’re thinking about driving to this hotel and care for your tyres, stay at a Travelodge instead.

The Premier Inn London Euston manager met with the Council’s health and safety team in 2009, and agreed that they had overall responsibility to keeping the car park and communal access routes clear and safe.

Is glass the only problem with the Premier Inn London Euston?

Of course not. Every morning a Sunlight delivery vehicle parks up on our road well before 8am. Today it was delivering in the car park at 7.30am. Nothing wrong there you might think, except it’s about 20 metres from a conservation zone, and large lorries are banned before 8am.

There’s a garbage compactor in the car park too, and the staff haven’t been trained how to use it properly. When there’s a problem with it everyone nearby hears a loud piercing alarm tone. Several times a week.

This hotel is currently undergoing an external rennovation, which apparently included causing minor damage to some of their neighbour’s plants. When the neighbour pointed this out, the man doing the rennovation work started bawling at the neighbour. I observed it for a while, and when the Premier Inn man began shouting inaccurate information across the street approached him to try to calm him down and put him right. Unfortunately the uncouth gentleman started bawling at me too. Something about me using their lift. I’m still none the wiser, but the moral seems to be not to approach the staff in case they bite.

If you care for your car tyres, or you have children, you may want to [...]]]> I’ve been telling the Premier Inn London Euston (PILE) that they have a problem with glass in their car park for quite some time. They don’t take the issue seriously, and haven’t actually replied to me about it.

If you care for your car tyres, or you have children, you may want to consider this:

The area you drive through isn’t that wide, your car tyres would go over the bottle. Since July 2009 I’ve got five holes in my bicycle tyres because of this glass. I’ve told the hotel manager, and I’ve told the hotel area manager. Neither have shown that they care about the safety of their staff, customers, or those living and working around their hotel.

How can I say with such certainty that the hotel has a laxed attitude to safety outside the confines of the hotel itself? Because if they did care, they would not let this happen.

It’s almost a daily occurence. The staff empty their empties into the recycling facilities. Not all of the glass makes it into the bin though. Perfect if you want to damage your car, your children, or even yourself!

Update – Sunday 6th March 2011.

Looking back over my logs, I can see that I’ve told the General Manager at the Premier Inn London Euston FIVE times that glass is an issue. I’ve been into the reception to let them know about it no less than SEVEN times in 2011 thus far. Broken glass is still an issue the hotel is having serious trouble keeping on top of.

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 [...]]]> 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.

All normal? Nothing to worry about? Well, not quite. Can you [...]]]> I’m getting good at this. Here’s another in the series of Whitbread delivery vehicles. This one is delivering milk to the Costa Coffee on Euston Road, the one integrated with the Premier Inn London Euston. God I love how that spells PILE.

All normal? Nothing to worry about? Well, not quite. Can you see those two yellow markings on the kerb just by the rear doors?

Here comes the science. I can’t drive, so this must be really taxing to the poor Costa Coffee delivery driver’s brain. Those two yellow markings on the kerb there, beside the double yellow lines, they actually mean something!

Let’s hot foot over to the Highway Code. It’s not like you have to pay for it still, it’s free online!

There, that’s what those yellow markings mean, from the horse’s mouth itself – the Highway Code. That holy grail of traffic rules that we should all adhere to. Whitbread, Premier Inn, Costa Coffee, whatever you want to call them, have a delivery like this every day in this location.

We’re actually lucky, there’s a big sign at the start of the street which says no big vehicles after 6:30pm or before 8:30am. Today he decided to be kind, and grace us with his presence before 6:30pm.

Whitbread contract out their deliveries to Kuehne & Nagel. I may have mentioned that before. Neither company will take responsibility. I tried to tell Whitbread about their haphazard deliveries after watching some of their other trucks reversing up a ramp, around a blind corner mixed with a café seating area, a church, and other pedestrian attracting features. Whitbread have told me over the last two years on so many occasions that they take safety seriously.

So come on, Whitbread, show us that you’ve got some community understanding. Get your staff to think about how what they do affects those around them.

I’m not holding my breath. After this fire in Euston yesterday, the nearest neighbour to the building (BAM Construction, building a new headquarters for Unison), kindly booked two hotel rooms for two people affected, so they could be near their belongings/home and help to get them back on their feet.

Whitbread/Premier Inn, of course, charged BAM full whack. Yup, that’s the British spirit. Get all the cash you can, even when you’re just a few measly metres away from someone who’s been forced out of their home at 5am because of pretty serious water and fire damage. I know who I’ll turn to if there’s another large scale problem.

Whitbread must have made shitloads from the floods in Cumbria, if that’s their attitude towards helping in a local emergency.