Whitbread wraps up 2025 with planning consent at Dorset House, SE1
Whitbread, the parent company to Premier Inn, the UK’s largest hotel business, has successfully secured planning permission to convert Dorset House, a former office building on Stamford Street in Southwark (SE1), into a 421-key hub by Premier Inn.
The permission rounds off an especially active 2025 for the business in Central London where it has acquired four development sites for its Premier Inn and hub by Premier Inn brands since January 2025.
Collectively, the four locations add close to 1,000 bedrooms – and nearly 262,000 sq ft of development space – into Whitbread’s secured development pipeline in the capital.
Dorset House brings the hub by Premier Inn brand south of the River Thames for the very first time at a location that boasts Waterloo Station, Blackfriars Station, London’s South Bank and the Royal Festival Hall within a ten-minute walking distance.
Whitbread acquired the 90,000 sq ft building freehold in May [2025] and quickly began conversations with Southwark Council on the change of use of the nine-storey vacant office into a hub by Premier Inn hotel.
The intention is to add the compact hub bedrooms within the existing floorplate and introduce a new hotel entrance on Stamford Street, with the basement-level F&B space visible through cut-out concrete sections on the ground-floor.
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 for 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.”
Reflecting wider changes in the demand for office properties across the UK, all of Whitbread’s property acquisitions in Central London are office-to-hotel conversions.
They include:
- 35 Red Lion Square, WC1 – the freehold acquisition of a former HQ-building into a 150-bedroom hub by Premier Inn. The 47,500 sq ft building was acquired in February 2025 with plans to convert it into a hub by Premier Inn .
- Phoenix House, SW8 – an 80,000 sq ft former office was acquired from Lambeth Council in March 2025 in an innovative leasehold arrangement. Work to convert the building began just 8 months after agreeing the terms of the lease.
- Dorset House, Southwark – acquired freehold from a private vendor in May 2025 for an undisclosed sum, with planning conversations with Southwark commencing shortly after.
- Victory House, WC2 – the freehold acquisition of a 45,000 sq ft office building on Kingsway for a 200-bedroom hub by Premier Inn (subject to planning), providing convenient access to Covent Garden, LSE, and Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
Collectively the acquisitions total more than £100 million of direct investment. All the new hotels will be powered solely by electricity generated from renewable sources in line with Whitbread’s sustainability programme, Force For Good.
Whitbread’s London hotels represent 18% of the company’s c. 86,000 bedroom-strong network in the UK & Ireland and an important growth market for both brands as the company works to expand its hotel estate by 45% to a long-term potential target of 125,000 UK&I rooms.
