A £5 million budget hotel in Wolverhampton will open in December – bringing 20 jobs to the city in time for Christmas, it was announced today.

Travelodge is on target to finish converting Bankfield House, a former 1960s office block on Waterloo Road, to a 99-room hotel. Located in the city centre and close to the Molineux, bosses who claimed they had to fight off tough competition to successfully secure the hotel site, say it will be in a prime location for both business and leisure travellers.

Tony O’Brien, Travelodge’s development director, said today: “We are delighted to be opening in such a fantastic location.

“We want to give travellers every reason to visit Wolverhampton and stay longer – we see increasing the availability of low cost accommodation in the area as central to achieving this objective.”

The project follows Travelodge’s pledge to add a further 3,000 rooms in 30 hotels in the Midlands by 2020. The new hotel will add an extra 99 family and double rooms to the area priced from £29 a night.

Travelodge joins a number of developers wanting to build hotels in the city.

A former house and office block in Church Street has been earmarked for a 12-bedroom B&B and application has been submitted to Wolverhampton City Council.

As well as the new Premier Travel hotel which opened next to the former low-level station in the city centre, a new four-star hotel is also planned to dominate the skyline as part of the proposed £179 million Interchange scheme which will boost Wolverhampton’s railway station and tired canalside.

Ramada also want to create a four-star hotel as part of the much-heralded £35 million Worcester Street Triangle development on Penn Road island, which involves building 90 apartments. The historic facade of the former Scala cinema would remain and form the entrance to a 75-bed hotel.

Travelodge now operates 337 hotels with more than 20,000 rooms in Ireland in Spain and the UK.

The company plans to grow its estate to 70,000 rooms, meaning 1,000 hotels, by 2020 and aims to be the biggest operator in London by the 2012 Olympics.