The group said today (January 12) its planned Burgess Hill Premier Inn, in West Sussex, will be the ‘latest evolution in environmentally-friendly budget hotels’.

It to be be built following Whitbread’s green hotel pilot in Tamworth, Staffordshire, opened in 2008, and a building the firm says was the UK’s first green budget hotel.

The planned 60-bedroom Burgess Hill hotel is due to open in autumn this year, and will adopt the best-performing green technologies trialled in Tamworth to deliver 70% carbon and 60% water savings.

Next to the hotel Whitbread plans to open its first low-carbon restaurant, a 220-cover Beefeater open grill restaurant.

The site will include ground-source heat pumps, rainwater harvesting and grey water recycling, high-efficiency thermal insulation, low-flow showerheads, heat-recovery, automated light controls and sun pipes for light.

As well as that both the hotel and restaurant will be built using timber frame construction methods from sustainably sourced wood.

Chief executive of Whitbred, Alan Parker, said: “The hotel will include many of the best performing technologies pioneered at our first green hotel in Tamworth.

“Our low-carbon Beefeater restaurant is another first for Whitbread and brings us another step closer to achieving a 26% reduction in carbon emissions by 2020.”

Luke Walsh

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