HotelFuture unveiled at Invest In Oldham event

OLDHAM Council has showcased the new £40m HotelFuture project at an event aimed at potential investors in the town.

The scheme, which is proposed for an existing surface car park space next to the civic centre and the Queen Elizabeth Centre, involves the creation of a new 120-bed hotel, a lecture theatre, teaching space and the creation of a new civic square.

The Queen Elizabeth Centre will itself be refurbished to form an adjoining convention centre as part of the complex, and up to 30,000 sq ft of commercial office space can also be accommodated on site. It has been designed by Manchester-based Roger Stephenson Architects.

Speaking at the Invest in Oldham event held last night, council leader Cllr Jim McMahon said the scheme, for which a £90,000 feasibility study was recently agreed, is an example of the progress being made in the town.

“What we are doing is create the conditions for growth, the sites that are spade-ready and a council that is responsive so that when they come to us they get a good response in a timely way,” he said.

He also said Oldham Council would provide “leadership that says if we agree something today, we’ll stick by it and we’re not going to shirk in 12-18 months’ time.

He added: “We’ve made a commitment that there’ll be no more artists’ impressions of a bright tomorrow unless there’s a signature on a piece of paper.

“With the hotel, we could have probably announced three months ago that this is what we want to try and do, but the reality is it could have gone somewhere else.

“We waited, we bided our time until the relationship was right, the partnership was right and we had a product that we could sell, and we’ve done just that.”

Stephen Miles, general manager of Manchester’s Radisson Edwardian hotel and chairman of Manchester Hoteliers’ Association, said that HotelFuture wasn’t just a college but “a unique national facility”.

Courses on offer would range from around 100 apprenticeships a year to executive management courses provided by Oxford University and Cornell University, among others. He also said the hotel would “succeed on its own merits” and had the backing of major hotels groups such as Hilton, Malmaison, Marriott Carlson, Rocco Forte and Radisson Edwardian.

“This is a very serious undertaking with major backers and qualifications gained at Hotel Future will be respected not just in the UK but throughout the world,” he added.

However, a local entrepreneur who recently bought The Bower Hotel in nearby Chadderton in January with plans to invest a six-figure sum turning it into a training academy, said he was “quite surprised” as the concept was so similar to his.

Philip Healey recently moved the headquarters of his Blue Training business to The Bower in order to run the hotel as a commercial venture which mixed experienced staff with trainees to offer them on-the-job training that lead to recognised qualifications being granted.

“This concept is already being undertaken within the Oldham area,” he said.

He said the hotel had already had some early successes, with some candidates already moving into full-time employment within the industry and more employers contacting it with vacancies.

He added: “On numerous occasions we have invited our local MP Michael Meacher into the Bower Hotel to discuss how The academy could increase the opportunities for local unemployed people.  Unfortunately we have never received a response.

“We welcome any opportunity which increases the competitiveness and accesses into training and employment for people in the North West. We feel a hotel which operates as a training academy is a truly fantastic idea…it’s that good we already do it without the cost of a feasibility study.”