A NEW Travelodge hotel is ready to open its doors and is taking bookings for its new Workington branch, which opens on Monday.

The hotel giant built the development opposite Allerdale House.

Last month the chain started advertising jobs in the area, including positions for receptionists, team members and housekeepers. It is understood that 3,000 people applied for the 40 vacancies.

Hotels were officially allowed to open from July 4 in England, following easing of the lockdown restrictions.

The 78-bedroom accommodation, developed by Hinton Group, was also granted permission for a drive-through cafe and a pub.

When plans where first mooted, the hotel chain said it planned to open the Workington hotel’s doors in May, but coronavirus restrictions would have made that impossible.

Last month, the Cockermouth branch of Travelodge reopened to support key workers. The company said it had launched TravelodgeProtect+, a programme of cleaning and social distancing measures for its sites.

Travelodge operates 573 hotels across the UK and has been operating 51 of them during the Covid-19 lockdown in critical locations across the whole of the country.

Those were needed to provide accommodation for critical and key workers as well as to support local authorities' needs during the unprecedented times of the pandemic and its challenges.