Hotel plans will kick off, says Wembley

Wembley Stadium has dismissed newspaper reports that spiralling costs will force it to scrap plans for a 200-bedroom, four-star hotel at the reconstructed national sports ground.

A spokesman for the developers dismissed the reports as "idle gossip" and said there were no plans to review the project.

"The Hilton group has a covenant for a hotel on the site but it has not signed up yet, so people are assuming it will not happen," he said. "But we don't have to fund the deal now and we fully expect there to be a hotel."

Hilton said it had been aware of discussions for alternative office use of the hotel site, and hoped the matter would be concluded by next spring.

The Wembley spokesman also played down reports that the number of restaurants was to be cut. He said the stadium wanted to serve 10,000 sit-down meals a day, regardless of the actual number of restaurants.

Demolition work on the stadium has been delayed from this month to late December because the developer is still sorting out the financing. The grounds are scheduled to reopen by 2004.