Council's shock u-turn on revealing nuneaton hampton-by-hilton hotel costs

Council bosses have made a U-turn on revealing costs of Nuneaton's Hampton by Hilton hotel. Back in April, CoventryLive submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Town Hall

to ask for the six months costs of the hotel. The landmark hotel officially opened in September last year and, while it is run by the hotel chain, it is owned by the council and was paid

for with public money. At the time of the first FOI, the council responded and said that the information was going to be published in a council scrutiny report in June. The scrutiny meeting

will be held on June 12. But the papers are in the 'confidential section', which means that the press and public do not have access to them and could not remain in the meeting when

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TEN YEARS CoventryLive submitted another FOI, asking the council for access to the papers. This followed the initial FOI response which said that they would be available. But our request has

been refused. It means that the figures can only be seen by members of the scrutiny panel. We asked the council to explain the U-turn and, in a statement, a spokesperson said: "At the

time of the Freedom Of Information request we had planned in good faith to release the information within the request as part of the report for the scrutiny panel which was planned for

publication in June 2025, after further consideration, we believe that the release of the figures are commercially sensitive and would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any

legal person (including the public authority holding it), therefore we are engaging exemption section 43(2) of the Freedom Of Information Act. “