Whitbread has secured planning permission to build a five-storey, 104-bedroom Premier Inn hotel in Carlisle city centre, Cumbria.
Premier Inn, Carlisle city centre. Credit: Allison Pike Partnership
The company will invest £12m to bring the vacant site at West Walls on Victoria Viaduct back into use.
In 2020, Carlisle City Council, the local authority at the time, demolished and cleared the historic hotel that once stood on the site after it became structurally unsafe.
Whitbread announced plans to redevelop the site in May 2025, with its proposals needing to take account of numerous design constraints including topography changes, height restrictions and the listed City wall, which forms a boundary along part of the site.
“As a team, we feel very passionate about this development,” said Jill Anderson, acquisitions manager at Whitbread.
“Bringing the site back into use as a hotel will encourage people to stay in the city centre, supporting other existing businesses as our customers eat and drink out, and will create permanent, flexible, year-round hospitality jobs with a leading FTSE 100 company – creating long-term value for the city.
“Redeveloping constrained locations such as West Walls is not easy and we have overcome many hurdles to design a viable hotel development.”
Whitbread aims to commence construction this year and is targeting an opening date before the end of 2028.
The company currently owns and operates 11 Premier Inn hotels in Cumbria. Premier Inn is the UK’s biggest hotel brand, operating more than 85,000 rooms in 850 hotels. Earlier this year, the company sold nine hotels to LondonMetric in an £89m deal.
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