Hoteliers launch staff drive

Nine Yorkshire hotels are launching a group designed to help solve a shortage of skilled staff in the area.

They have each invested £1,000 in setting up Yorkshire Fine Hotels.

It will be launched next month and will have a Web site to advertise and promote vacancies.

Graham Usher, manager of the 21-bedroom Hazlewood Castle hotel in Hazlewood, North Yorkshire, said: "There are, for instance, masses and masses of positions for chefs available that just cannot be filled."

The other hotels in the group are Rudding Park, Harrogate; 42 The Calls, Leeds; the Boar's Head, Ripley; the Grange, York; Hayley's, Headingley; Holdsworth House, Halifax; the Devonshire Arms, Bolton Abbey; and Swinton Park, Ripon.