Whitbread has secured planning consent to convert a 90,000 sq ft office building on Stamford Street in Southwark into a 421-key Premier Inn hotel.
The company acquired the freehold of the nine-storey Dorset House, which is located on London’s South Bank, in May this year.
Whitbread intends to add compact hub bedrooms within the building’s existing floorplate and introduce a new hotel entrance on Stamford Street.
Construction work is expected to begin in the second half of 2026 with a target date for opening in summer 2028.
Jonathan Langdon, senior acquisition manager at Whitbread, said: “Whitbread’s reliable and affordable hotels are ingrained in London life and we’re taking full advantage of opportunities to expand our network further for our guests. The 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.
“All four acquisitions demonstrate Whitbread’s ability to spot and convert excellent opportunities to grow our business, deploy capital strategically, and work through planning risks to successfully grow our estate. Achieving planning permission at Dorset House rounds off an especially active period for Whitbread’s Central London team in 2025, and we are moving quickly to progress our pipeline hotels into construction and onto trading as soon as possible.”
