'Shipping container' hotel built.

Bedding down in a shipping container may not sound an enticing prospect - but it is exactly what guests at a new budget hotel can expect.

An eight-storey hotel is being built from 86 modified shipping container-like structures, stacked on top of each other and bolted together.

When complete in June, rooms at the new Travelodge in Uxbridge, west London, will cost £19 a night.

The chain said it may build up to half of its future hotels in this way.

The purpose-built containers are shipped from China with the bathrooms, plasterboard walls and electrical points already fitted.

Bosses said guests would 'not be able to tell the difference'


Once installed at the construction site, the modules are decorated and furnished, and the exterior of the building is cladded.

Paul Harvey, director of property development for Travelodge, said: "Although it may not look like a hotel right now, the containers will be fitted out to include everything we offer in the rooms at a traditionally built hotel.

"You simply won't be able to tell the difference."

Travelodge said the container-style hotel was cheaper and faster to construct.

While a traditional 100-bed hotel cost the firm £5m to build, the new design cost about £4.5m, and could be built in 30 weeks, instead of 40.

Bosses said the design meant hotels could be built and later dismantled quickly, which could potentially "revolutionise" the accommodation offered at festivals and sporting events.

The steel containers could also be melted down and recycled, the firm said.