Norman conquest

IN THE heart of rural County Durham sits the village of Middleton-in-Teesdale, home to Norman Richardson House, a private and public sector partnership aimed at championing the cause for hospitality training in small businesses.

Opened just over 18 months ago, Norman Richardson House is a residential training and conference centre designed for teaching in the hospitality industry, but it began life as the Foresters and the King's Head - two failing pubs stuck next door to each other.

Now the two buildings have been developed into one 800sq m facility, incorporating a bar and bistro designed specifically for on-the-job training.

The project is a collaboration between the local further education facility, Bishop Auckland College, and pub operator Teesdale Traditional Taverns, a small, family-owned operator with nine leased pubs nearby.

Teesdale Traditional Taverns' chief executive Hugh Becker is the scheme's driving force. In 1995 the leases for both pubs ran out, coming back into the hands of Becker and his company. He decided to take the opportunity to tackle a problem close to his heart - the special needs of rural micro-businesses - and turn the pubs into a self-sufficient project that has a valuable place in the regeneration of the community.

"When it was the Foresters and the King's Head it was an absolutely classic case of a rural market town and an over-supply of licensed premises," explains Becker. "The two pubs were, in a sense, competing against each other and both were failing.

"We've got quite a lot of experience in the particular issues and problems micro-businesses face in terms of business, personal development and support," he continues. "So we thought this was an ideal time to put words aside and action up front."

After three years of planning and building, and a total investment approaching £700,000, Norman Richardson House was opened by the Duke of Westminster in January 1998.

The King's Head was converted into the bar-bistro and is now used as a working outlet turning over £4,700 a week, staffed mainly by students from the college or other trainees. The public can now drop in for a drink, a bar snack or a three-course meal.

The design of the bar was deliberately chosen to look good but also to serve the practical methods of training people, acting as a coffee shop, a wine bar, a bistro, or a pub.

"The idea, and we've managed to stay true to it, is that the quality is the highest we can get," says Becker. "Incrementally we're managing to increase it, but the cost is as low as possible to make it accessible to the local community and visitors. The number of comments we get remarking on the value for money shows we are achieving that objective."

The 40-seat King's Head serves around 70 covers a day, with an average spend at lunchtimes of £7-£8 and £12-£15 in the evening. There are 15 working staff, eight full-time, and all are either students at the college or full-time workers training for extra qualifications through the college.

The college runs various hospitality courses through Norman Richardson House - catering and hospitality NVQs, food hygiene certificates, the Welcome Host series, National Licensees Certificate exam, British Institute of Innkeeping (BII) qualifications and others. These courses can last anything from a day to several weeks in length.

It has also run two New Deal placements, one of which didn't work out, says Becker, but the other is now close to being taken on full time as a chef. "That's been quite a dramatic success," he says. There is also a Modern Apprenticeship running.

From the outside, Norman Richardson House looks like a modest two-storey building, but it's actually four storeys, with an extra one below and one in the roof. The residential part of the centre can accommodate 14, and Becker is looking to increase it.

There is a main conferencing room, incorporating a training bar, that can hold up to 100 delegates. Next door there's a smaller room that can hold up to 40, opening on to a terrace overlooking the river at the back. There's also a full laundry, cellars, secure storage, and walk-in freezers.

"Everything in the place is functional, to run the centre, and is also set up so that it can deliver training. It will have everything you could possibly hope for when we actually get it all," says Becker.

He is keen to explain how Norman Richardson House is self-sufficient in terms of revenue, a fact he describes as a "fundamentally important" aspect of the project.

"Although it had a small, very modest amount of public funding in the capital part of the programme, it produces its own revenue so it isn't a cost to the public purse. It actually pays its own way," he says.

That initial capital funding was £280,000 of mainly European development cash, the only public money the centre has received. Another £200,000 from Teesdale Traditional Taverns with the same again in sponsorships and donated goods made up the rest.

The key to the potential success of Norman Richardson House is the relationship between Teesdale Traditional Taverns and Bishop Auckland College.

The pub operator has leased 80% of the building on a peppercorn rent to the college for 15 years, with a management agreement to service and facilitate the building.

Becker needed a public sector partner to join Teesdale Traditional Taverns in the scheme in order to qualify for the European funding, but the co-operation doesn't stop there. "It's down to the college to market the place and organise courses," explains Becker. "It also has to administer them. Our role is to facilitate all of that in the most practical way possible through housekeeping, catering and other support.

"So once the college has a group of people who want to come and be trained then we can take over. They obviously supply the training people but we supply all the back-up and the infrastructure to allow that to happen as smoothly as possible."

Blueprint for national training?

Norman Richardson House has already been visited by HCIMA chief executive David Wood, as well as the board of the BII. So how does Becker view the centre in terms of national hospitality training?

"I think it's an important experiment and at the moment that's really its status," he says. "A significant number of people who've visited have mentioned its adaptability and how it could be replicated elsewhere."

Despite this national attention, Becker maintains that Norman Richardson House exists to improve the future of micro-businesses, essential if the hospitality industry is trying to improve its product in general.

"Large businesses tend to recruit people from micro-businesses and if their professionalism has been raised an increment or so it could produce a vast reduction in recruitment and retention costs, which is probably one of the biggest costs to the large players."

Now that the centre has been up and running successfully for more than 12 months Becker is looking ahead. "We're looking to involve the local primary school," he says.

"We as an industry are not making a sufficient bridge between ourselves and primary and secondary education to ensure that parents and so on recognise it's a legitimate career for children to pursue. We want these children to come and use it because this, for a small rural community, is probably the future for four out of six of them." n