Staff escape as blaze hits revamped hotel
Mar 19 2008 by Brian Daniel, The Journal
FIRE has ripped through upper floors of a hotel and restaurant in a Northumberland town, days before it was to reopen following a refit.
Eight bedrooms at The Ravensholme Hotel in Berwick town centre were extensively damaged in the blaze which started at around 3.30am.
Staff who live in the hotel escaped as firefighters spent more than five hours bringing the blaze under control.
The 60-seat Villa Spice Indian restaurant and bar was hit by smoke and water damage.
The hotel was to have opened for the season next Tuesday, with rooms fully booked until September, but it will now be closed for several months while repairs are carried out. A £7,800 refurbishment had been completed on Friday.
Hotel and restaurant owner Amran Hussain, 46, has invited his staff to stay with him at his flat in Newcastle.
He said: “It is heartbreaking for everyone, for the staff, for everybody. It is a big shock for everyone.”
Firefighters were called at 3.30am and by 4.15am, six engines were at the scene – two from Berwick, one from Belford, one from Wooler and two from Lothian and Borders. Four members of staff who live in rooms on the second floor fled the property by breaking windows. They suffered from smoke inhalation and cuts.
It was initially thought that Mr Hussain, who lives in one of the staff rooms, was in the hotel and they tried to contact him on his mobile phone.
However he was visiting his brother in Alnwick and returned to Berwick to see fire engines in the town centre.
Mr Hussain said: “I had a funny feeling. The next thing I knew my building was on fire.”
The fire was finally brought under control by 9am and investigations were under way into the cause of the blaze.
Mr Hussain, originally from Heaton, Newcastle, and who owns a restaurant in Bishop Auckland, bought the hotel a year-and-a-half ago and, after his first season, decided to carry out the refurbishment to give the premises an Indian decor.
Last night, Mr Hussain who apologised to customers whose bookings will have to be cancelled, said that he was unable to calculate the estimated cost of the damage and lost trade.
