Between 15:30 and 17:30 today the garbage compactor was running unattended. Every now and then a bag would catch, and the alarm noise would sound, the rubbish [...]]]> After chatting to someone nearby about my concern over the mushrooms at Premier Inn London Euston, I’ve been given a photograph of the previous time, but before that…

Between 15:30 and 17:30 today the garbage compactor was running unattended. Every now and then a bag would catch, and the alarm noise would sound, the rubbish would move slightly, and the alarm would stop.

“We really don’t need to keep the compactor attended when it’s being used, I mean, a child couldn’t climb up there and fall in.”
Stephen Luck, former Premier Inn London Euston General Manager

A subsequent manager confirmed to us that the compactor shouldn’t be used unattended. The problem is that since that assurance, there have been two managers!

Whitbread, whose profits recently soared thanks to the popularity of Costa Coffee, don’t seem able to spend money on the Premier Inn London Euston. Thanks Whitbread! You make such wonderful neighbours from hell.

But yes, the mushrooms..

Staff collecting mushrooms at Premier Inn London Euston

This photograph was passed to me, taken on 4 October 2011. That’s two occasions where we can confirm that the vegetables were taken inside to the kitchen area, but cannot confirm whether they were used in food for guests. The one thing that is for certain is that the staff did not put the contaminaited food in the bins just to the right.

Of course, I cannot repeat enough that the articles on this website aren’t aimed solely at the hotel’s management, though their incompetence is there for all to see through lack of sufficient staff training. In case you’re wondering, the remaining portion of incompetence is with Whitbread’s head office itself, Gerald Eve, Whitbread’s property specialists, and John Gaunt & Partners, their licensing ‘specialist’ who have successfully forced through changes to the way the Premier Inn London Euston is laid out and run, without ensuring that all of their t’s are crossed, never mind the i’s being dotted. Premier Inn London Euston is purely a money making machine for Whitbread, and as much as I know that those involved will contest it, there really is no concern for those around them. I’ve been asking them to fix basic faults for over six years now!

Several days ago one of my neighbours mentioned to me that he’d watched as the Kuehne & Nagel delivery truck dropped off the food delivery to Premier Inn London Euston. A box of mushrooms fell off the delivery, and scattered over the ground. Not [...]]]> I know, it sounds alarmist, but I am a little concerned.

Several days ago one of my neighbours mentioned to me that he’d watched as the Kuehne & Nagel delivery truck dropped off the food delivery to Premier Inn London Euston. A box of mushrooms fell off the delivery, and scattered over the ground. Not necessarily a problem if they are going to be washed and cooked.

The concern I have is that the area where I was told these mushrooms had fallen is the same area I have posted photographs here showing shards of glass littering the tarmac. It’s a problem I’ve been telling the hotel about for five years now. The chance of these mushrooms coming into contact with shards of broken wine/beer bottles is very high.

Then, over the weekend, I popped down to ask if a Kuehne & Nagel driver could turn off his engine, as the noise and vibration was affecting neighbours. After a few moments of abuse he turned his engine off. I turned round to find a Premier Inn employee picking up mushrooms again. Back in the box they went, so I wandered by to take this snap of them all snugly back on their pallette.

And just to clarify, here is a picture of what you’re likely to find on the ground in that area. I went back after the delivery people had left, and found glass on the floor. It was still there at 8am today.

Premier Inn London Euston were told, but I didn’t notice any mushrooms going into the bin. Enjoy breakfast!

The Travel Inn opened on this site in the mid 90s. After being rebranded to “Premier Travel Inn”, it’s now a Premier Inn. The hotel gets a new manager around once per year, but the problems such as noise, glass, and now food hygiene, don’t seem to be going away.

I sat as an observer a while back at a licensing application to allow the Premier Inn London Euston to have outdoor seating areas. This sentence still makes me chuckle today:

“It’s not a budget hotel, Premier Inn is a Premium Budget Hotel”
John Gaunt,
John Gaunt & Partners, a niche alcohol, entertainment and licensing practice.

When the noise goes off, the first thing the member of staff will do is turn it off and on a [...]]]> This is a recording of tone at 2kHz. It is very similar to one used by Premier Inn London Euston to indicate to their staff that their refuse compactor is in need of attention.

When the noise goes off, the first thing the member of staff will do is turn it off and on a few times, just in case, you know… Saves them changing the bag, I suppose.

That’s if they are there. If they’ve left the compactor running and gone away, we get the tone, either until they return or we give in and call reception.

This noise has been going off for longer than I can remember, and people have been actively complaining at the PILE for at least five years. The ten minute blast of noise on Easter Sunday really wasn’t appreciated.

I can’t say we were jumping with joy when we found out that Whitbread are finally taking the problem seriously, and have asked to re-site the compactor. The refuse provider wants to take Whitbread to court, so that it can carry on providing PILE with equipment which causes harassment to neighbours.

I fear things may have taken a turn for the worse though. This was how the area inside their refuse cage looked on Tuesday…

In fact, it was quite so full, the staff didn’t know where to put their rubbish. So it got locked outside the rubbish cage.

In case you’re wondering, the blue box there says “Whitbread Food Logistics”. Lets hope it gets binned rather than reused.

Does it smell? It mings. As soon as the temperature got about 10 degrees the flies were a major problem, things are obviously decomposing in there already.

Immediately to the right of those two bags is where Premier Inn store their towels and bedding. At other times of the day, the area marked “Keep Clear” can be the temporary store for their food delivery. Here’s a photograph two days later showing the towels and bedding:

Just don’t get me started on the car park. Oh go on then, just a quick one. Quite a few years ago, I passed some documents to the manager explaining that if his road markings and signs were the same as those used on the highway, people will understand them better. First of all they came along and painted some laughable yellow marks on the tarmac, and now they don’t even bother to police it.

That’s not necessarily a problem, but their delivery vehicles are rather large trucks, and they don’t have enough space to turn, creating excessive noise and nuisance.

Whitbread class Premier Inn London Euston as a “Premium Budget Hotel”. After quite so many years of Whitbread, owners of Premier Inn and Costa Coffee, to those living and working around this example, its Premium Fawlty Towers.

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.

In other news on the company, they’ve just launched a “flat white” mediocre coffee, [...]]]> The Times newspaper has reported that Starbucks (the mediocre coffee chain) has complained to the Advertising Standards Authority because it disagreed with a claim by Costa Coffee (the mediocre coffee chain) that people prefer one type of mediocre coffee over another.

In other news on the company, they’ve just launched a “flat white” mediocre coffee, it’s CEO has announced he’s leaving, and the man in charge of easyJet is to take charge at Costa Coffee.

It’s allso came to light that the people who taste-test Costa Coffee love their jobs so much, one has insured their tongue for £10m.

That’s the corporate face of Costa Coffee. The face of Costa Coffee that I see is very different. I’m lucky enough to live near three of their coffee shops. The coffee giant that I see provides overly-heated milk (if you overheat the milk, it doesn’t taste nice and sweet, leading to a sour coffee). The outdoor seating areas are always a mess with napkins and empties, obviously they can’t be bothered to clean up. Then there’s the deliveries…

I’m not sure how clear this one is. It’s well after 6:30pm, and those double yellow kerb markings are accompanied by a sign on the lamp-post which says “no loading or unloading at any time”. This is the mediocre Costa Coffee on the corner of Euston Road and Duke’s Road in London. The manager of this particular place – Premier Inn London Euston (doesn’t that spell PILE?), and his area manager Peter, deny that this ever happens.

Costa Coffee park here, and deliver to their mediocre coffee shop every day.

This Costa Coffee truck is delivering to the new Marchmont Street mediocre coffee shop. The double yellows are “no parking at any time”. You may also notice the cycle lane the truck has parked over. Its a one-way street, with parking bays on the right as you drive.

Camden Council are in the process of re-paving Marchmont Street outside the Brunswick Centre, because of the dropped pavement, caused by the Costa Coffee deliveries. Who pays for this new pavement? Well, let me put it this way, Costa Coffee aren’t paying for it.

Whitbread, which owns Costa Coffee, contracts out its logistics and deliveries to Kuehne & Nagel. I’ve spoken at length to Whitbread about their deliveries, they try to pull up their socks, but it only lasts 5 minutes. I’ve emailed Kuehne & Nagel, they aren’t interested at all.

So it looks like it’s you and me, the respectable taxpayer, left to foot the bill because Whitbread, who own Costa Coffee, won’t take corporate responsibility for their actions.

Do yourself a favour. Buy your coffee independently.