Sir Terence Conran to help City sleep easy with Moorgate hotel

The Square Mile is to get a new Conran-designed, £50million boutique hotel on a site in Moorgate.

The D&D London group, formerly known as Conran Restaurants and in which Sir Terence Conran has a 51 per cent stake, is said to view the hotel - which it hopes to open in 2012 - as the first in a nationwide chain.

If final planning consent is granted, the 80-room hotel in South Place would be a few minutes' walk from the Great Eastern Hotel at Liverpool Street station, in which the group had a 50 per cent stake until three years ago. The new hotel's interior would be designed by Conran and Partners, the design firm run by Sir Terence.

D&D London is also looking at another site in the City where new restaurants and bars could be built, and a possible second hotel project in Birmingham.

Des Gunewardena, the company's chairman and chief executive, said: "We are still expanding, but in a slightly different way. For example, in different times we might have invested more of our money in the hotel."

Sir Terence, 78, was presented with the outstanding contribution to design accolade at the British Design Awards in London last night.