From the photo given for the hotel we were led to believe we were booking a picturesque riverside hotel. Okay there is a dirty river which runs out the back which is accessible via a muddy walk over a broken carpark if you go looking for it. The concrete carpark and bins view of the hotel which greets you is another story. Once you push your way through the fog of smokers at the front door the reception is welcoming and staff are polite. You then have to go back out and pay your first £5 pay and display ticket for parking. You will have to be back every 24 hrs to make sure this is topped up. After making your way through the badly trolley marked corridor you come to the lifts with the broken floor tiles which will take you to your floor. Follow the scuffs and chips in the paintwork left by the housekeeping trolley to your room. Here we found that the door wouldn't open properly because the door closer on the back knocked against the wardrobe. The wardrobe which had one of it's three doors nailed closed and a handle missing contained a grand total of 3 hangers each. The furniture is scratched and chipped, the carpet is not hoovered, I don't know what was splattered on the ceiling or what had left the stains running down the walls. The mould on the windows was thick. There were tea/coffee making facilities with odd sized mugs but no teaspoons or any other means of stirring your drink or retrieving your teabags. The bed was comfortable but very noisy at the slightest movement. The bathroom had a good display of mould both on the tiles and the seals, lots of holes from previous positionings of fittings and a plug for the basin with a hole in the centre of it. The bath had been patched but the patch was now in need of patching. There was no hot water during our 3 day stay. At night we had to block the 2 inch gap under the bedroom door to try to reduce the light flooding in from the corridor, but the 2 red lights on the smoke detector that flashed above the bed every 5 seconds were not so easy to ignore. The room was comfortably warm but the noise from outside made us check to see if the window was open on several occasions. A good hair dryer was provided. An iron was available from reception but the ironing board was fit for the tip. Housekeeping do no more during your stay, than top up the dirty drinks holder and empty the bins. Admittedly, this hotel is one of the lower priced accommodations available but even this is deceptive by the time you've paid for your parking. This hotel needs a lot of money spending on refurbishment and training the house keeping staff.
