News in brief

Rooms over the pub

Pub group JD Wetherspoon has opened a 41-bedroom budget hotel in Birmingham. The hotel has been built above a new pub in the city centre and gives the group its third hotel. Room prices start at £45 on weekdays and £40 at weekends.

Manchester moves

Hilton plans to invest £45m in a 349-bedroom hotel in the centre of Manchester within the Great Northern Warehouse area, a shopping and leisure development. Plans for the 10-storey building, which is subject to planning permission, include restaurants and bars at street level. It is due to be completed in early summer 2001.

Gill honours conran

Restaurateur Michael Gill has started a dining club called Club Pool Court. The club will arrange events at his restaurant, the Pool Court in Leeds. Other private dining events have been arranged at Harewood House, also in Leeds. Sir Terence Conran has been made the honorary first member.