Underground Hotels?

Simon Woodroffe , owner of the YO! Sushi and budget hotels group Yotel is bidding to build a hotel and leisure complex in tunnels 100 feet below High Holborn.

Built in 1940, the kingsway tunnels are about a mile long and have served as an air-raid shelter, MI6 spy base and Cold War telephone exchange. The current owner, BT, has put them up for sale and they could be worth up to £5million.

Mr Woodroffe sees the development as turning the tunnels into a "crash pad" aimed at clubbers during the weekend and City workers during the week. Proposals are for 150 to 200 rooms including a suite with a jacuzzi described as a "basement penthouse".Guests would use an automated check-in and check-out system. Food could be ordered via TV in the rooms. There are also plans for a cinema, bar and club.

The existing tunnels cover about 77,000 square feet and sheltered up to 8,000 people during the Blitz. They were an MI6 base during the final years of the war and later used as a "reserve war room", a public records library, and a phone exchange connecting the Cold War hotline between the US and Soviet leaders. Until the mid-Nineties some 150 telephone engineers worked there every day. There was a snooker hall, canteen, bar and tropical fish tank.

Mr Woodroffe said he and business partner Gerard Greene were "intent on taking the Yotel concept around the world, as well as underneath it", although a BT spokesman said it could be difficult to gain planning permission to use the tunnel as a hotel, because of its location. He warned of practical problems such as creating adequate fire escape routes from deep underground.