Hilton Garden Inn Peterborough

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00:00I'm actually delighted that the majority of the committee has seen sense.

00:04Sending it back to council or even cabinet, we're just going to waste more of our time.

00:10We need to move on this.

00:11You know, it's costing us money.

00:13We need to move on.

00:14The quicker we move on, get a sale agreed, the quicker this episode can be finalised.

00:19We are in a situation where, you know, the building is getting worse and worse by the day.

00:25But I'm glad and I'm thankful to the scrutiny committee today.

00:28We saw sense, saw that, you know, realistically the options that were put forward were not really that strong.

00:34All they would do was buy a bit of time, but that time would cost us.

00:38And I'm glad that the scrutiny committee has come up with the best decision.

00:42Are you confident you will see a four-star Hilton Galbraith Hotel at Flemke?

00:48I'm confident that the amount of interest that we've had, we will see a decent hotel on there.

00:55Four-star is what we're hoping for.

00:56I don't have a glass ball, but I do believe with the amount of interest and it's a prime site location,

01:03we will have a four-star hotel at that site.

01:06I'm grateful and I will do everything in my power to make sure it happens.

01:11But you'd accept though, we're not, the council is not going to get 15 million pounds back invested in the first place.

01:18Yeah, I agree. Sadly, when it was, the loan was given, it was a good idea.

01:23However, as I said in the meeting, the world changed and we are not in a situation, we will not get our money back,

01:29mainly because the company we lent it to have gone into administration.

01:32But the game now is really to get as much of that money back for the council taxpayers of this city,

01:38so we can invest either that money somewhere else or we can start paying off our debt.

01:43What's going on? But I'm disappointed with the outcome.

01:46So it will now, the hotel will now be sold to the highest bidder.

01:50We have to hope that it's a sensible bid and we have to also hope that they have good intentions to finish it

01:57as a Hilton hotel, as the concept was. My concern is we are, you know, we are a few years from knowing

02:04if we've made the right or wrong decision today, but my argument still is we'd have been better off to

02:10seek a partnership, build out and finish the hotel ourselves.

02:14It may take a number of years to have recouped the money, but I still believe we'd have recouped all the money in the end.