Peterborough City Council uses 'urgency' powers to ensure Hilton Garden Inn opens on time

Special ‘urgency’ powers are being used by Peterborough City Council to ensure the city’s £40 million Hilton Garden Inn hotel is completed on time.

The council is waiving councillors three-day ‘call-in’ procedure so that a lease can be immediately agreed to allow electricity to be supplied to the nine-storey hotel that is being built on a riverside site at Fletton Quays.

The council wants to issue a certificate of compliance for the grant of a ‘lease and easements’ that would allow electricity substations and associated infrastructure to be installed to provide power to the site.

The action is required under the terms of the £15 million loan the council has made to Fletton Quays Hotel Ltd to build the Hilton Garden Inn.

Council documents state: “These procedures have been invoked because of the timescales required by the Fletton Quays Hotel Ltd and their electricity infrastructure provider (Eclipse Power Networks) to be able to schedule in the installation of the electricity infrastructure for the development so that key deadlines for completion of the development can be met.

"There is a 12 week lead time on this with the scheduled opening of the hotel being March 2023.”

The statement adds that not to grant a lease would ‘jeopardise the loan as the development upon which it is secured could not be completed.’

Construction of the 160-bedroom hotel that will create 75 jobs began two years ago.