New identity in line for Cadbury House
Simon Matthews-Williams is to invest £8m converting the Cadbury House leisure club and conference centre at Congresbury, near Bristol, into a state-of-the-art health and leisure club and a luxury four-star, 50 bedroom hotel.
Matthews-Williams, the former managing director of Merseyside's Centre Island Hotels, bought the property this March for £1.7m from the Wiggins Group.
The first, £4.5m phase of the project will see the construction of a brand new, two-storey health and leisure club on the estate's 14 acres to accommodate the club's existing 1,200 members. Matthews-Williams believes that membership could rise to 2,500 after the upgrade.
The second phase will see the existing building converted into a hotel by September 2005, with the intention of it joining the Classic British Hotels consortium. Existing conference capacity will be scaled down from 400 to 300 delegates.
The plans are still subject to planning permission but it is hoped that the new health and leisure building will be completed next year.
The development will create 70 new full-time jobs in addition to the current workforce of 100 full- and part-time employees.
Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 11-17 December 2003
