Avon Lodge owner buys motor inn

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34132, 20 April 1976, Page 2

Avon Lodge owner buys motor inn

The company that owns the Avon Motor Lodge has bought the Arlington Motor Inn. Its managing director (Mr M. R. Carter) expects that it will reopen in November, when two additional floors will be completed.

The 30 staff at the Arlington Motor Inn were given notice last week when it was known that it had been sold. They will finish work on May 1.

Mr Carter said that extension work would begin as soon as possible. The additions had been designed by Austin and Warren. The company had also bought all the land owned by the previous shareholders. It would demolish the two-storey brick house on the corner and landscape the area, said Mr Carter. The additions would cost about sl.3m. He did not want to disclose the purchase price because the deal was complex. No previous shareholders would retain a holding in the Arlington. Nor had theyacquired

shares in the Avon Motor Lodge. It was intended to run the Arlington Motor Inn in conjunction with the Avon Motor Lodge as a residential unit, with very little outside catering. The dining-rooms might remain open to the public, but these questions, and the possibility of a name change, had not yet been decided. The Motor Inn is believed to have been running at a loss because it has lacked the additional accommodation it was originally designed to provide.