John Atkins, Managing Director of MAG Developments, the property and development arm of the Manchester Airports Group, comments: “This is the latest stage in our £50 million hotel development programme across our group and complements both the growth plans of the airport and builds on our existing portfolio of 2,000 beds at our four UK airports. The progress made on site to date is testament to our main contractor, Bowmer and Kirkland, who have successfully delivered various quality projects at East Midlands Airport. Having worked with Azure on similar projects for 15 years, we look forward to delivering this new high-quality, energy efficient hotel.”

The unique design of the five-storey, 216-bed hotel will incorporate elements that reflect both the locality and significance as a gateway to the region, including a courtyard that induces references to the nearby National Forest with its timber features, and an aviation-inspired canopy. The northern elevation of the building will be clad in curved aluminium panels with feature flush windows and seamless joints similar to modern airliner construction.

In line with East Midlands Airport’s commitment to be carbon neutral by 2012, the hotel will utilise a range of low energy technologies to reduce the energy demand of the building; supplemented by an on-site Combined Heat and Power (CHP) engine with a Pure Plant Oil (PPO) Tri-Generation Energy Centre that will export electricity to the national grid outside of normal occupancy hours. This innovative system will collect and store any waste heat generated and use it to heat and cool the whole hotel delivering an 87% reduction in CO2.

The building also incorporates a number of sustainable construction techniques to deliver a BREEAM Excellent facility.

www.magworld.co.uk