This hotel is not just in Ipswich, it is in “the new Ipswich, East of England’s biggest single urban regeneration project”. So says a tourist information sign next to the Old Customs House, a grand building overlooking a marina filled with rows of gleaming yachts a stone’s throw from the Salthouse, a warehouse dating from the 1800s. It opened as a hotel in 2003 and is run by the Gough family.

The Salthouse is really rather good. In fact I would go so far as to say that it offers some of the best-value, clean and stylish rooms — accompanied by bright service and a decent restaurant — that I have visited this year.

Rather than bother with deluxes and superior doubles and so on, there are three categories of room at the Salthouse: good, better and best. However, as I found, there was no need for better or best, “good” was large enough, with a spotless bathroom, exposed red-brick walls and metal beams painted a silvery gold, and a big bed with a dark wood headboard decorated with carvings of small African figures (not quite what I had expected in Ipswich). There were excellent bedside reading lights that could be twisted to the right angle.

Free wireless internet was available, as were two bottles of mineral water, which were placed on an ample desk. From my window I had a marina view, with a forest of masts and rigging on vessels with names such as Daydream and Gazette and the River Orwell, from which George Orwell got his pen-name, in the distance. There was complete quiet apart from the occasional sound of a gull.

I stared out for a while, sitting on a comfortable armchair — daydreaming that all hotels could be like this and cost just £90 a night. Then I pottered into the centre of Ipswich, the “old Ipswich”, which was a ten-minute walk away, to take in the pretty flint churches on the hill and the lanes near Butter Market with their quirky shops.

Back at the hotel, I dined at the “Eaterie”. This was in a large room with a high ceiling, run by a squadron of waiters and waitresses wearing black who promptly brought my tasty crab cakes and salmon with prawns, French beans, leeks and courgettes. There were sculptures of figures striking thoughtful poses in alcoves and splashes of modern art. Gentle jazz played. Outside, along the promenade by the marina, joggers and skateboarders passed.

I had a couple of niggles: the internet instructions were a little complicated, and the sound insulation between the rooms was perhaps not as effective as it might have been. But that was it. The Salthouse is about to extend into the building next door, with the new wing opening this month. It should be even better then, as “new Ipswich” gets even newer.

Salthouse Harbour Hotel (01473 226789, www.salthouseharbour.co.uk), Neptune Quay, Ipswich, Suffolk IP4 1AX.

Room 8 out of 10

Service 8

Food 7

Value 8.5

Score 7.88.

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