AN online petition has been struck up try and prevent a council from borrowing £17m to build a hotel.

The Labour-run Stockton Borough Council plans to borrow the money from the Government to build a mid-market, 125-bed Hilton by Hampton hotel in the town centre and pay it back at £830,000 year over 35 years.

Leading officers have said that three independent pieces of research strongly indicate that there is very strong demand for a hotel, especially from the business community.

But Conservatives on the authority have objected arguing that it would be better if at least some of the risk fell to the private sector.

And now former Labour councillor, Terry Chapman, has put a petition on the council's website objecting to the scheme. If it attracts more than 2,000 signatures the matter will automatically be referred to a full council meeting for a full debate.

The petition said: "The proposals represent too great a risk for current and future residents of the Borough and should more satisfactorily be achieved by Private Sector investment. Such us of public money would potentially place an undue financial burden upon council tax payers and threaten the provision of other essential services in the future."

He said: "As a resident I'm concerned that the council is getting involved in an area it shouldn't be involved in. The risk is all ours and the private sector has run rings around the council."

A hotel management company will run the hotel which is expected to serve national and international businesspeople. Previously The Northern Echo has revealed that the authority and the hotel managers expect to charge an average room rate of £80.25 over the next five years while attracting an occupancy rate of more than 80 per cent. Stockton council would still expect to make about £90,000 a year after all other costs are deducted. Council officer Richard McGuckin, who is head of economic growth, was grilled on the project by a panel of councillors at a scrutiny committee meeting. He said there had been similar successful schemes in Stockport and Aberdeen and that it could be worth about £6.7m a year to the wider economy and would create about 100 jobs.

Leader of the council, Bob Cook, has hailed the project as; "one of the most exciting things that has come to Stockton for a long time."

Stockton’s town centre’s previous large hotel, the 1972-built, four star Swallow, closed in 2009 but is due to be turned into student accommodation.