Budget hotel operator Premier Inn has unveiled plans to turn Sir Alan Sugar’s Essex headquarters into its latest hotel venture. 

The Amstrad office building in Brentwood – the base for Sugar’s BBC reality show The Apprentice – will be turned into a new 120-bedroom hotel subject to planning consent being granted. 

Whitbread-owned Premier Inn hopes to start work at Brentwood House in Brentwood, Essex, early next year, with the hotel opening in autumn.

Mark Anderson, property director for Whitbread Hotels and Restaurants, said: “The deal we’ve struck with Amsprop - Alan Sugar’s development company and owner of the premises - means that we will have a strategically-located hotel opposite Brentwood train station and just 10 minutes from Stratford and the Olympic site.”

Anderson said the group would continue to look creatively at sites as part of its aim to have 55,000 rooms in its portfolio within the next five years.

“Office conversions are part of that,” he said. “In the current climate, many vacant office buildings can be put into profitable use by working with the right partner.” 

Despite the BBC’s attempts to portray the boardroom from The Apprentice as being in the heart of the City of London, it was in fact on the eighth floor of the office block in Brentwood.

Premier Inn is claiming an “unprecedented number” of pre-bookings from keen fans and upcoming businessmen and women wanting to stay on the eighth floor.

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The Apprentice >>

By Daniel Thomas

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