Norwich City Council Grants Planning Consent for Mixed-Use Project at Premier Inn Site

Norwich City Council has approved Whitbread’s plans to redevelop the Norwich Nelson Premier Inn site, located opposite Norwich Railway Station. The scheme includes a new Premier Inn hotel, purpose-built student accommodation, new homes, commercial space, a public park, and an upgraded riverside walkway.

The first phases will deliver a larger 248-bedroom Premier Inn hotel, 492 student accommodation units, a new public park, and improved public river access. Whitbread will continue to operate the existing Premier Inn Norwich Nelson hotel during construction.

The new hotel will feature Premier Inn’s latest format bedrooms, including Premier Plus rooms and “The Social” dining space. The hotel will be housed in a new seven, six, and five-storey building on Prince George Road facing Norwich Station. Student accommodation will be provided in two new five and six-storey buildings within the site, surrounded by landscaped areas and the new public park.

The redevelopment plan includes improved riverside connections and enhanced pedestrian routes from Prince George Road to the east and Baltic Wharf to the west. New homes, approved in outline as part of a hybrid planning application, will be located to the north of the site, adjacent to Charles Darwin Primary School, and are planned as the final component of the three-phase redevelopment.

Sheppard Robson Architects led the master planning for the project, with landscape design by Macfarlane Associates and planning and social value advice from Savills. The Norwich Nelson redevelopment is Whitbread’s largest asset intensification project currently progressing in the East of England.

Previous Whitbread asset intensification projects have included the redevelopment of Premier Inn hotels in Bristol and Manchester into modern co-living and purpose-built student accommodation.