Flood hotel to reopen

Another hotel victim of last autumn's floods is to reopen for business next month after losing an estimated £500,000.

The Riverside Hotel in Branston, Burton-on-Trent, will open on April 2, five months after the adjacent River Trent flooded it on November 7 last year. It was flooded just days after the property had completed a £100,000 refurbishment.

Its opening coincides with Nottingham's Hotel des Clos which was also forced to close after being flooded.

The Riverside Hotel was surrounded by water after the Trent rose 17ft, but it has now been gutted in a £250,000 revamp which also included the property's 22 bedrooms, its 100-seat restaurant and 120-seat function suite.

Malcolm Sexton, who manages the property with his wife Brenda, estimated that the Old English Inns property had lost more than £500,000 in business.

"We lost two weddings at the end of last year, all the Christmas business, four weddings this year and Mothering Sunday," he said.

The hotel's 18 staff have been paid throughout the closure and the cost of the refurbishment has been met by the hotel's insurers and Old English Inns.