hotelThe Hotel Inspector · Season 9, Episode 2 · Aired July 12, 2012
The Oakland Hotel
Essex
It is still up and running.
On the show
Season 9, Episode 2 · July 12, 2012 · hotel
revisited in The Hotel Inspector Returns (2014)
What happened after
36-room budget hotel, family-run, open all year; live eviivo booking integration.
What happened on the show
The series 9 record on the Oakland is brief, noting Alex Polizzi visiting an Essex venue combining a hotel with a nightclub, run by a family the show said were not dancing to the same beat. That points to the familiar problem of family discord undermining an operation, here one that combined accommodation with a nightclub, a demanding mix to run well. The episode summary does not spell out the specific faults or fixes, so the honest account is the verifiable frame: a family-run Essex hotel and club, hampered by internal disunity, that sought the inspector's help in her ninth series. The fuller measure of the visit is best read through the business's later trajectory. The family-and-nightclub operation aired in July 2012, and the show returned in 2014 to a hotel that has settled into steady budget trade.
After the cameras left
The Oakland is still trading and in solid shape. Resolved to South Woodham Ferrers in Essex, it operates as a thirty-six room family-run budget hotel, open all year, with live booking integration on an official site that references a current bar and restaurant. The show returned for a 2014 revisit. The family Polizzi found out of step appear to have kept the hotel going as a stable, if unpretentious, going concern, with the accommodation side firmly established more than a decade on.
Sources
Confidence: high. Last checked 2026-07-19.
What is there now
Street imagery via Google Maps. Location approximate.