London – Hammersmith and Fulham (Borough of) – West Brompton The Hub by Premier Inn

I like new hotel concepts and The Hub is Premier Inn’s attempt to create an on-trend accommodation option which has more flexibly sized rooms (by flexible, I mean smaller) which allows them to charge a little less. It’s not quite the capsule style as the rooms are larger than that, but they are of course much smaller than traditional hotel rooms.

The room with the television at the end of the bed and plenty of space for bags underneath the bed.

The lighting controls are at the end of the bed.

This table pulls out to provide an element of desk space. The bottle of water is free and although there are no coffee or tea facilities in the room, they are available free of charge downstairs.

The view from the end of the bed.

There is a large television and it allows mirroring from smartphones, so this is what happens when you do that and point the phone towards the television. I accept, I need to get out more….

The bathroom, which is pretty much the same size as in most hotel rooms.

When I stayed in India, it was common for a digital display outside the room to indicate whether the guest wanted to have their room cleaned or whether they wanted privacy. I’ve wondered when this would come across to Europe in more hotels at a budget level, as it’s much better than hanging bits of card from the room door.

The pricing was competitive, coming in at under £30 for the night and the hotel is just a very short walk from West Brompton underground station. I very much liked this concept, as the execution is brilliant. A lot of thought has gone into the design of the room to maximise space, and it is entirely functional. There’s storage space, a chair, desk, comfortable bed and a perfectly sized bathroom. The bin is in a cupboard (that’s more appropriate than it sounds) and the bottle of water is a nice little touch. The room was incredibly quiet, with no noise impact from either inside or outside of the hotel.

I accept that the room isn’t ideal for romantic breaks or for families who need more space for their children and to argue, but as a place to stay I really rather like it. There are some larger rooms in the hotel, but there wasn’t a floor plan on the back of the door as there usually is to guide customers out in the event of a fire. That was a slight shame as I couldn’t establish just how the hotel was laid out in terms of how large the rooms are.

There weren’t really any problems, I thought that the room in total darkness might be hard to find the control panel of lights, but it was still very slightly visible. I quickly checked the wi-fi and that was fast and functional. As for the staff member who checked me in, she was full of engagement and personality, so a credit to the hotel. There was a friendly checkout process as well (I say process, I put the key in a box and the staff called out asking if I had enjoyed my stay, so that works for me). London is competitively priced at the moment, but this could be an option I’ll consider in the future and Premier Inn have opened up a few of these already in the city.

All really rather lovely.