Butlins signs up for another 125 years at Bognor

The signing by Butlins managing director Richard Bates and the leader of Arun District Council Cllr Gill Brown secures the holiday company's commitment to the town until 2133.

The document they completed at the Shoreline Hotel today (April 17) is the signal for long-term investment in the seafront site.

The first result of this will be the second, bigger hotel rising just inside the main entrance.

Piling is underway and the 200-bedroom seven-storey building is due to open next July.

In November, 256 ageing chalets will be pulled down in a statement of intent by Butlins that its accommodation is moving upmarket.

The following years should see all the remaining 1,016 chalets disappear to be replaced by hotels and apartments.

Mr Bates said Butlins was delighted to have guaranteed its place in Bognor for the rest of the 21st century and beyond.

"I am thrilled to bits we have signed the new lease," he stated.

"Our new hotel is just a small part of the overall regeneration of Bognor, which is an exciting place to be.

"Like all businesses, we are demand-driven. The Shoreline Hotel has been so successful and there is no reason to expect the second hotel to be any different.

"If that's the case, we will be looking at replacing all our current accommodation, though I'm not going to put a timescale on that."

Butlins' renewed commitment to Bognor was good news for the town, he remarked.

It would add to the tens of millions of pounds a year which Butlins brought into Bognor.

This was directly through the visitors' spending as well as the wages of staff and the supply of goods.

"Some 400,000 people a year come to this site. There is a great myth, dating back years, that people never leave our site.

"That is absolutely not the case. People decide on the resort they want to go to first and then decide where they want to stay.

"I love this area and the feedback about it that we get from our customers is better than from our other two sites.

"Butlins in Bognor is more sophisticated and more entertainment-driven than our other sites because the expectations of the customers we have from London is that much higher than elsewhere."

The new hotel will generate some 200 jobs. Resort director Jeremy Pardey said: "It will be even better than the Shoreline Hotel and fantastic for the local area.

"The team here are so excited by it. It will put us on a different level and it shows we are the first company involved in the regeneration of Bognor to put our money on the table."

Cllr Mrs Brown said: "The signing of this lease is fantastic news.

"It shows Butlins has great faith in Bognor and the council has faith in Butlins."

The lease, for an undisclosed rent, replaces the original 99-year agreement which allowed Sir Billy Butlin to open in Bognor in 1960.

It took Butlins and the district council about nine months to finalise the agreement. Some of this time was spent waiting for the government's minister for communities and local government, Hazel Blears, to sanction the deal.

As well as the hotel, Butlins has spent 500,000 on creating a new garden and children's playarea, 600,000 on a revamp of Centre Stage and a further 600,000 improving the deluxe accommodation.