Line dancers upset after Eastbourne hotel fails to give refund for weekend stay

Members of the Southern Nights and Southern Rebels line dancing groups say they paid £6,000 for the three night stay at the Mansion Lions Hotel on the seafront in April last year.

It would have been the fourth event the groups had held in the town and organisers say they were offered the choice of postponing the event or a refund.

Michelle Mathieson from the Southern Nights group said she had been told a refund was pending but after more than six months later, is still waiting for the cash to be refunded so she can give it back to the pensioners.

Michelle, who has previously organised three line dancing weekends in Eastbourne said, “We booked this for our line dancing ladies and obviously we were sympathetic when Covid struck and understood.

“But now we are more than a year on and despite several requests for the refund, our ladies are still waiting. They are all pensioners and it’s a horrible way the hotel management is treating them.”

A spokesperson for Lions Hotels Group, which owns the Mansion Lions, said it did not want to comment.