Whitbread, owner of Premier Inn, has received planning consent to transform Verity House, a vacant office building in the South Bank area of Leeds city centre, into a 131-room hotel.
A planning application for the development was submitted to Leeds City Council in May 2025. Construction work is expected to commence in early 2026 and complete in Spring 2027.
Last week, the crucial section 106 agreement between Whitbread and the Council was signed, effectively paving the way for the development to proceed, following the delegation of decision-making to the city’s planners.
Upon opening, Verity House will complement three trading Premier Inns in Leeds city centre with a new 143-bedroom Premier Inn at Leeds Harewood Quarter also under contract as part of a council-led redevelopment.
Jill Anderson, acquisitions manager for Whitbread, said: “Gaining approval of our plans for Verity House is a major achievement in our efforts to deliver more high-quality, affordable bedrooms for our guests in Leeds City Centre. We’re seeing huge demand in the city and this wonderfully accessible location is sure to be incredibly popular for our business and leisure guests.
“Whitbread has a long and successful track record of converting office buildings into high-quality, successful Premier Inn hotels. By purchasing Verity House freehold last autumn, we demonstrated that Whitbread is unafraid to take on planning and development risk to convert former offices into hotels in locations that match our network plan requirements and meet the expectations of our guests. We’re actively looking for similar opportunities across the north of England as we continue to grow our hotel estate in the region.”
