Peterborough City Council gets approval for £16.7 million credit bid to own Hilton Garden Inn
Hotel could be open to guests by next summer
Peterborough City Council has secured approval for its £16.7 million credit bid to take ownership of the partly-built Hilton Garden Inn.
Council chiefs are now working with administrators Teneo on the remaining details that will enable the local authority to finalise the purchase of the nine-storey hotel at Fletton Quays.
It will mark the end of a nine-month-long process that began with the council taking the hotel developer, Fletton Quays Hotel, into administration last October after a prolonged period in which no construction work was carried out to the hotel.
The council is the preferred creditor having provided a £15 million loan to the developer in 2017 to kick start building work on the 160-bedroom hotel. With interest, the value of the loan stands at £16.7 million.
Completion is likely to cost another £14.4 million with some expected to come from government grants. £10 million has already been set aside.
A council spokesperson said: “Our credit bid submitted as part of the administration process for the Hilton Hotel has been accepted.
"We will now be working with the administrators on the next steps to be able to complete the purchase of the hotel.”
Councillors will be presented with a business case in July asking them to choose from several options for the future of the hotel that would include the council overseeing its completion and opening or for the building to be sold with no financial loss to the council.
Cecile Booth, the council’s executive director of corporate services and Section 151 officer, has previously told the Peterborough Telegraph her preferred option would be for the council to oversee the building’s completion, allow it to trade as a Hilton Hotel so it becomes a going concern before the building is sold.
It is hoped the hotel could be trading by next summer.
Ms Booth said: “The hotel is not taking money from anything else.
“When the hotel opens it will provide an income stream that repays the council over time.”