Stay Inn owners plan £1m upgrade

THE owners of the Stay Inn Manchester hotel at Trinity Way in Salford are planning a £1m, six-storey extension that will add a further 21 rooms to the property.

Shabbir Ahmed, one of the partners behind the hotel, said that an extension to its 65-bed hotel was required as it is regularly full despite increased competition from the new Travelodge on the former Boddingtons brewery site nearby and the Park Inn at Cheetham Hill Road.

“We still feel we need to add more,” he said. “We have people who come to us all the time and we have to turn them away because we are full. We’re not a factory and we can’t produce more when we need it.”

The hotel on the junction with Blackfriars Road and Trinity Way opened as The Dolby in 1996, but changed its name to the Stay Inn following its most recent change of ownership in 2003 . It currently employs 20 people, but if Salford City Council’s planning committee approves its proposal to extend the building at a committee meeting tomorrow it should lead to an extra 2-3 jobs being created.

Mr Ahmed said that the hotel is popular with guests staying in the city for periods of a few months as rates are lower than at budget hotels for people booking longer periods. Its website offers rooms from £65 a night.

An earlier application to add a five-storey extension containing 23 rooms was refused permission in 2005, but planning officers are recommending that the latest application is approved even though it has an additional storey.

This is because the new building is set further away from neighbouring properties on Blackfriars Road which means residents “would not be significantly affected by the proposed development”.