Extract from Caterer's archives
The sixties
An "unbreakable barrier of bloody mindedness" is how frustrated Mr Arthur Rowbotham speaks of events that have reduced his motorist customer turnover from an average of 10,000 a year to barely 1,000.
His café has been bypassed by a new road. What makes him so angry is that the ministry and the local planning authority have refused to allow him to take simple steps which could inform the thousands of drivers who now use the bypass that food and toilet facilities are available.
"All I am asking," he says, "is for permission to raise a neon sign I have on the café by a couple of feet, so it will then be seen from the new road, and to put up two advance notices before the slip road."
He added that, despite unceasing attempts on the part of his solicitor and himself, they had run up against an apparently "unbreakable barrier of pure bloody mindedness".
The seventies
Hotel accommodation in Brighton, that was converted into flats and self-catering units not so long ago, is coming back into hotel use. The main reason for this turnabout is the opening of the resort's 5,000-capacity conference centre.
Alfred Feld, owner of the 70-bedroom Norfolk Continental Hotel on the sea front, told Caterer: "Over the years, Brighton has lost many of its entertainment attractions, such as the Hippodrome, but, with the coming of the conference centre and the private-enterprise marina, I have never been so confident about the town's future. What we need now are one or two new hotels."
The eighties
North Americans have regained their confidence in Britain as a holiday destination, according to Government figures published last week. About 360,000 visitors came from the USA and Canada in May, a rise of 136,000, or 61%, on the same month last year, when numbers were slashed by the Chernobyl accident and threats of reprisals after the bombing of Libya.
Now tourism minister John Lee is predicting that 1987 could be the best year yet for British tourism. "It is especially encouraging to see the return of American visitors in great numbers," he said.
