Hotel 'would enhance Pavilion'

Chairman of the Pavilion Trust, Dr Richard Sykes, insisted the hotel idea, revealed in last week's Observer (inset), would not affect the venue's current 6m revamp to make it the south east's premier visual arts venue.

He is backing the concept of the 60-bedroom, four star hotel near the pavilion but said it would be down to the people of Bexhill exactly where it should go. Either way he wants to see the ball rolling as soon as possible.

Dr Sykes is convinced a hotel could be just the springboard to improve the town centre and the De La Warr's economic fortunes, but only part of a wider regeneration package.

He said: "There's no doubt that our priority is as a cultural and visual arts centre and that's the proviso on which we were awarded the last grants amounting to 6m to refurbish the pavilion. Work will start in earnest in September and is due for completion next Autumn.

"We are also in no doubt as to our wider importance in the community and as a partner in the regeneration of Bexhill.

"The Trust may have taken responsibility of the De La Warr away from Rother District Council but that doesn't mean we have turned our face to the sea and our back to the town.

"We have to be commercially viable and start making better use of our facilities. We currently have a lot of spare capacity, especially with the bar and restaurant and the amount the main auditorium is used.

"The hotel could help us make fuller use of what we have here, with the business and conference market in the week and our cultural facilities catering for the weekend-break market.

"The hotel and the enhanced use of the pavilion would create jobs and attract more visitors to the town centre as a whole throughout the week."

But the big question is where?

Dr Sykes added: "Erich Mendelsohn left a fine sketch of a hotel he would have liked to have seen completed on what is now the putting green. Of course, with the old Metropole, there is precedent for a hotel on that site.

"But we shouldn't automatically assume that the putting green is the only site for a hotel. There is the potential to develop other sites around the Sackville Road roundabout, but that's an issue for Bexhill to decide.

"We would like to see an informed debate but we also need to move on in a determined fashion without too much delay."