Morecambe hotel shuts as investigation is launched into disappearance of £50m

Administrators of the Carlauren Group have announced the closure of The Headway Hotel in Marine Road East with the loss of 29 jobs.

In total, 64 staff have been made redundant within the company’s Heritage Hotel Group, which includes two other hotels on the Isle of Wight and in Cumbria.

A small number of redundancies at the company’s head office have also been made.

This follows the appointment of Quantuma and Duff and Phelps as joint administrators over the Carlauren Group of companies with a remit to investigate the disappearance of more than £50m of investors’ money last month.

Carl Jackson, managing partner at Quantuma, said: “We were appointed joint administrators on November 28 and have been working tirelessly in this time to stabilise the position of the group.

“With regret it has been necessary to make the difficult decision to close three of the Heritage Hotel properties. The seasonal nature of these properties means heavy trading losses are forecast for the first quarter of the year meaning that that any profits made elsewhere in the group would be negated.

“Our immediate priority is to ensure that those affected receive the appropriate support required to enable them to make the necessary claims from the Redundancy Payments Service. We will be closely managing the group’s trading position and will possibly seek to take steps to reopen some or all of these properties as appropriate in due course.

“In the meantime the remaining properties in the group will continue to trade, securing the ongoing employment of the remaining two hundred staff.”