A major operator has signed up to take over the new 120-bedroom hotel in the multi-million pound Vicar Lane Leisure Exchange.

The £2.5 million Express by Holiday Inn will open in the middle of November as one of the key tenants of the major city centre leisure scheme.

The biggest operator is 16-screen Cineworld cinema complex.

Other attractions include a Hollywood Bowl, Frankie and Benny's and Pizza Hut.

Developers J J Gallagher say they are also expecting to sign up with a national company for a 3,000 square metre restaurant on the site.

Simon Newsholme, a director of J J Gallagher, said interior fitting of the hotel had started and there would be about 25 full-time employees when it opened.

He added: "We are delighted about this. It will be a good quality budget hotel and there is a need for it."

The new hotel operators have signed up a year after Premier Hotels, which was expected to join the Leisure Exchange unit, went into liquidation.

The blow came as workmen completed the shell, and the developers put the fitting out on hold as they began a trawl for an international tenant.

J J Gallagher was the third company to take on the development of Vicar Lane.

Previous proposals by J F Finnegan and the Stadium Group collapsed but the £35 million Leisure Exchange opened at the end of last year.