Buckley plans return to roots
Sporting Lodge boss declares pub interest for group
Former Greenalls director Ken Buckley (pictured), who launched the award-winning Squares and Via Fossa brands, is planning a return to operating pubs.
Buckley, who now heads expanding hotel and leisure company Sporting Lodge Inns, has declared he is looking for opportunities to buy pubs for the group, which was set up at the end of 1999 with £30m backing.
"My roots are in pubs, and the door is certainly not closed on buying some, if the right opportunities come along," he said.
Sporting Lodge Inns has just acquired its second property, the £1.2m Greyhound Hotel in Leigh on the outskirts of Manchester.
A £3m-plus development will create a hotel and leisure concept along similar lines to the first Sporting Lodge, in Bradford. Work is expected to be complete by next spring.
As well as accommodation it will include a food and ale bar, a carvery-style restaurant, conference and banqueting facilities, a fully-equipped gymnasium, a sauna and a swimming pool.
Sporting Lodge Inns was the brainchild of entrepreneurial financier Mark Ashdown and as well as Mr Buckley as managing director it has ex-Greenalls executive Fran Sixsmith, formerly Fran Mannion, as sales and marketing director.
The concept is inspired by American hotels with large bedrooms which can sleep up to five people for less than £45 a night. The "Escape Zone" fitness centre is free to residents.
After a difficult first year, the Bradford outlet is now achieving an occupancy rate of more than 70 per cent, and Mr Buckley is happy with the company's progress."We believe that Sporting Lodge Inns has developed a formula that seriously challenges the competition in terms of quality and value for money," he said.
"The aim is to have about a dozen of them around the country which we will try to open at the rate of two a year."
The concept requires a site of two to two-and-a-half acres on a main road and he believes there are enough run-down two-star hotels around to supply the right kind of property.
The next purchase in the pipeline, however, is a £2m office block in Nottingham.
