Hotel & Venue News

Wessex Hotel in Bournemouth has just joined the Bespoke Hotel group. Wessex Hotel has 109 modern, well-equipped bedrooms plus Lulworth Restaurant, six meeting rooms - the largest seating up to 400 delegates theatre style - and a leisure club with indoor and outdoor swimming pools, gym and beauty treatment rooms. There is free wi-fi throughout the hotel.

Wessex Hotel is the fourth Bournemouth hotel in the Bespoke Group. It joins Bournemouth Carlton Hotel, Bournemouth East Cliff Court Hotel and Hallmark Hotel Bournemouth.

Wessex Hotel is located on Bournemouth’s West Cliff, a five minute walk from the town centre.

Details: www.bespokehotels.com

Details: Published: 11 December 2014; Hits: 1907

Tulse Hill Hotel has just reopened following a £1.5million refurbishment. The 19th century former public house has nine new bedrooms from family sized doubles to singles - all with ensuite bathrooms, free wi-fi, iPod docking stations, Freeview television and tea and coffee making facilities.

Tulse Hill Hotel also features an antique bar, a restaurant, a private dining room for 14 guests, a chef’s table for five plus a landscaped garden for al-fresco dining. The menus focus on seasonal British ingredients and the bar serves draft beer and organic wines.

Tulse Hill Hotel is located in Norwood Road, Herne Hill (SE24). Tulse Hill station, the nearest overland station, is a three minute walk from Tulse Hill Hotel, with trains to Blackfriars, King Cross St Pancras and Clapham Junction. Tulse Hill Hotel has an onsite car park exclusively for the use of guests staying overnight.

Details: www.tulsehillhotel.com

Details: Published: 11 December 2014; Hits: 1532

The Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen is to sell part of its Schoolhill campus to the Malmaison Hotel du Vin Group who are understood to have plans for a 200-bedroom hotel development on what is a prime city-centre site. Whether the new scheme will be a Malmaison or Hotel de Vin is not known.

The properties include the university’s 85,000sq-ft Clarke Building and 16,000sq-ft student union premises next to Aberdeen Art Gallery.

There are 13 Malmaison in the UK including one in Queen’s Road in Aberdeen. The group has 15 Hotel de Vin properties nationwide.

Last summer Robert Gordon University sold its St Andrew’s Street Building to the Canadian-based Sandman Group. They are planning a £20million, 220-bedroom hotel with a restaurant and conference facilities.

Details: www.rgu.ac.uk

Details: Published: 10 December 2014; Hits: 1583

Developers, Allied London, have unveiled plans to create a new cultural centre on the former Granada Studios site in Spinningfields in the centre of Manchester. Named ‘The Factory Manchester’ after Manchester's Factory Records, it could be open by 2019.

The Factory Manchester will be a large scale, ultra-flexible arts space with standing capacity for 5000 people and the capability to transform into a 2200-seater theatre. It will also become the permanent home of the Manchester International Festival.

In October 2014 the same company revealed plans for the Manchester Grande - a 200-bedroom hotel and entertainment complex in the same area.

More details on The Factory Manchester will be announced in early 2015.

Details: Published: 10 December 2014; Hits: 1448

Marco Pierre White is planning two new Marco’s New York Italian restaurants, both opening in the New Year. The first will be in the Holiday Inn Kenilworth in March and the second in Best Western Premier Yew Lodge in Kegworth a month later.

Marco’s New York Italian restaurant in the Holiday Inn Kenilworth will have 114 covers. Best Western Premier Yew Lodge will have 134 covers. Both restaurants will serve Marco’s take on American-Italian food.

Holiday Inn Kenilworth is close to Birmingham International Airport and the NEC as well as Stratford, Warwick and Coventry. Best Western Premier Yew Lodge is two miles from East Midlands Airport and equidistant to Nottingham, Derby and Leicester.

Details: www.mpwrestaurants.co.uk

Details: Published: 09 December 2014; Hits: 1624

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Refurbishment Round-up