QMH sells third hotel from list
QUEENS Moat Houses has sold a third hotel from its initial list of 14 hotels marked for disposal earlier this year.
The Leicester Forest Moat House, on the outskirts of Leicester near junction 21 of the M1, has been sold to Whitbread Inns, which immediately renamed the hotel the Forest Park.
The 34-bedroom hotel was placed on the market with Christie & Co, which was seeking offers of around £800,000. No sale price was disclosed.
A spokeswoman for Whitbread Inns confirmed that the property will be converted, conditional on planning permission, to a Brewers Fayre pub restaurant with accommodation and function facilities.
Given that the nearest Whitbread Travel Inn is at Northampton, the hotel part of the property could be converted to the Travel Inn brand at some later date. An earlier Whitbread acquisition from Queens Moat Houses, the Countess Wear Lodge Hotel in Exeter, Devon, is to be converted to a Travel Inn and Beefeater restaurant.
lWhitbread has agreed to build a 60-bedroom Travel Inn and Beefeater Restaurant at the Oxford Business Park, Cowley, Oxfordshire.
The hotel development will be on 2.5 acres at the junction of the Oxford Ring Road and Garsington Road adjacent to a new flyover now under construction.
The site, owned by Arlington Securities, is on the former Rover car factory and will include a 90-acre business park and a retail park with units already sold to Tesco, Tempo electrical warehouse and Burger King.
