The £20 million luxury hotel built on campus

Roof garden, Brasserie, bar, gym, floor to ceiling windows, the new 202-bed eco-friendly De Vere Orchard Hotel on campus has it all.  

But did you know the University spent £20 million on the plush new hotel? That’s 10 million pints of Foster’s in the Bag O’Nails. Enough even to cover the rent of roughly 5,000 students for a whole year.

Fees have jumped to £9,000, so is this where your money is going? 

A few weeks on from the launch, it is already obvious that the Orchard Hotel is geared towards complimenting the East Midlands Conference Centre. The website even claims their food is “prepared with your productivity in mind. They’re healthy, light and energizing – to avoid that post-lunch slump.”

Kirstie Danzey, marketing manager at Nottingham Conferences at the University claimed that even “though there are other hotels close-by, it provides accommodation to delegates”.

“The University of Nottingham also has a requirement to offer accommodation to visitors to the university, staff and students.”

The Tab wonders then why it costs £79 a night to stay there? Would your parents be willing to pay that when you graduate? They could spend  £72 at the luxury Waltons hotel. Or stay at the P&J hotel from around £45 with breakfast for a standard room or around £69 for a double en-suite room. Or the Hylands Hotel in Beeston for as much as £60 for a double en suite.

So is this all worth £20 million? The University justifies this large investment by stating that all profits will “be put back into the University for the further development of its entire facilities” and that “the revenue that it generates will be ploughed back into the Educational Programmes at the University”.

They also claim that we will be “unique in offering a stand alone hotel in tandem with the conference centre on campus”.

The Orchard is to be awarded an ‘Excellent’ rating under BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) standards thanks to features such as solar panels, natural ventilation system and sourcing power from bio-fuel.

Having these facilities definitely makes us look the part for people coming to visit, but what about other places on campus? Jordan Gray, Law says that he is “absolutely shocked that the university would spend money on a hotel when so many other places are falling apart!”

Alan Clawley who reports and campaigns for The Stirrer in Birmingham said “We know that a perfectly good job of restoring the Library of Birmingham can be done for £30 million”. Looks like Hallward missed out on a bit of TLC.

Do you think these millions have gone to good use? Vote on our poll below or join the debate on twitter @TheTabNottsNews