Two of Blackpool’s most prominent Promenade hotels have closed their doors and will not reopen. The Lyndene and St Chad’s Hotels on Blackpool’s seafront are huge buildings, with 141 guest rooms in total. The eighty staff who worked in the hotels have not only lost their jobs, but also have not received their final wage payments. There are now worries that these two massive landmark hotels will become derelict and add to the eyesores on the resort’s landscape.
The two hotel buildings are owned by a Singapore company Fragrance with UK-based Bespoke Hotels owning the businesses. Bespoke Hotels Chief Operating Officer (COO), Graham Marskell said that the company had been forced to take the ‘very difficult decision’ to dissolve the businesses with immediate effect.
An anonymous former Lyndene and St Chads worker told LancsLive: ‘Everyone from the management, to the waiters, the night porters and the bar staff have just gone. There are people who have worked there all their lives and will be given nothing. I live pay check to pay check, I’m on minimum wage and I have very little in the bank, I don’t know what I’m going to do.’
Claire Smith, president of hoteliers group StayBlackpool, expressed her severe worries to the Blackpool Gazette, ‘It is such a shock because these were two very successful and well-run hotels on the promenade. t is terrible news for the staff, it is just appalling they have lost their jobs and won’t get their final wages. It is also bad news to have two prominent hotels lying empty on the promenade. It doesn’t take long for large buildings to deteriorate. The Lyndene would always be one of those hotels that stayed open in winter, when most of the other were shut, and you could see the lights on and the entertainers performing when you went past. It is just terrible news, especially when the industry is going through such a tough time with the pandemic.’
Many in the entertainment business are also mourning the loss by posting on Facebook. For example, Neil D’ Angelo wrote about The Lyndene, ‘Such sad news. It’s lovely hotel and gave lots of entertainers lots of work –three acts each night, seven nights a week!’
