Planning consent has been secured for a 614-room Travel Inn Capital, which will include 250 car-parking spaces, a 24-hour restaurant, a Bureau de Change and meeting space. The hotel will be targeted at the business, family and leisure markets. Whitbread intends to open the hotel by summer 2002.

Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels and Ashwell Rogers, acting for the site owner, a private trust, secured a long term ground lease under which Whitbread will pay a turnover rent subject to a guaranteed minimum level. Tom Oakden, Vice President at Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels said: 'We approached both full service and limited service hotel operators during the marketing process and received a wide level of interest. The vendors' objective was to secure a rental income rather than a capital receipt from the site and Whitbread offered a strong covenant and the ability to underpin their turnover rent with a secure base level of income'.

The Heathrow hotel market is one of Europe's most buoyant airport markets and has benefited from the strong increases in passenger numbers over the past decade, reaching 64.3 million in 2000. And this will virtually double with the completion of Terminal Five, which is expected to receive planning permission shortly after next month's general election.