Commons Leader Sir George Young said “appropriate action should be taken” if “offensive pictures” were on show. A barman confirmed that an hour later the beer had been removed from sale.

The beer, brewed in Stafford by Slater’s Ales, was introduced to The Strangers’ Bar in 2007. It sells for £2.70 pint and one barman told the Press Association: “We haven’t had any complaints raised with our bar staff.”

During business questions on Thursday, Ms Green, Stretford and Urmston MP, said she had only just learned of it, but felt it should be removed because it had “a picture of a nearly naked woman on the tap”. There must be more going on in the world or is it just us at H and C News being too liberal..?

H and C News tried to contact Ms Green earlier today for comment but she was unavailable, more information is available however from The BBC website, Click here for full story

The Valentine’s Escape Prize worth £308 includes:

· Luxury Overnight Accommodation in a Superior bedroom

· Full English Breakfast

· 6 course tasting menu at the Terrace Restaurant.

For full entry details and terms & conditions simply visit The Montagu Arms Hotel on Facebook and “Like” the page AND then visit the post for the Valentine’s Escape Competition. Entries must be made online before 11.59pm on Wednesday 8th February 2012 and the winner will be selected at random from all those new ‘Likes’. Good luck

We have announced our support for the British Pie Awards 2012, and our new Sponsorship agreement for the Football Pie class Award is in place.

A visit to sample last year’s British Pie Awards winning pie at Morecambe FC is being organised and a full report will follow soon. Not only did Morecambe FC win the Football Pie category they also won the ‘Supreme Champion Pie Award’ across all eighteen pie categories, so we must be in for a treat.

We are also talking with Piebury Corner, a fantastic entrepreneurial pie outlet deep in Gooner North London home territory. More on this soon as we are going to The Emirates to meet the couple who founded Piebury Corner, might sample a ‘Thierry Henri’ (Venison in Red Wine Gravy) while we are there.

Last year’s champions Ipswich Town have had a new napkin made at Portman Road with a QR code encouraging fans to vote for their beloved Portman Pie, more on this soon too.

Our new Home Ground can be seen here and voting for your favourite football pie is now simpler than ever, all you need to do is leave a comment stating your preferred pie.

Home Vote = 1 Point

Away Vote = 5 Points

Cliché or Banter = 3 Home Points

Like the Football Pie League and a bonus 5 points for your home team too

Denne and Coplan are working alongside architects PRP to develop proposals for Bedford Borough Council’s £50m project. The project plan includes a 150 bedroom hotel, 30,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space and 150 high-quality residential units.

Detailed discussions are already ongoing with a potential cinema operator with planning permission expected to be applied for in the summer of 2012.

Dave Hodgson, the Mayor of Bedford, said: “This high profile site offers a fantastic opportunity to deliver real regeneration for our town centre. We are working hard alongside Coplan/Denne to bring forward the scheme and make the most of this unique town centre riverside location for Bedford.”

Coplan and Denne are also the preferred development partners for the £50m mixed use redevelopment of a council owned car park within the heart of Herne Bay for Canterbury City Council.

Project information is supplied to H and C News by Glenigan the trusted provider of sales leads for construction contracts in the UK, industry data, analysis, forecasting and company intelligence.

For more information visit the Glenigan website

Staff at The Leaf Tea Shop and Bar in city centre Liverpool got to see for themselves S&S Northern’s commitment to customer service following a recent break-in at the tea shop and bar. Leaf’s Managing Director, Natalie Haywood, says, “We realized we had been broken into during the night when we came to open up in the morning. This was made worse by the fact that during the break-in the key which turns the kitchen’s gas interlock safety system on and off had also been taken, so we were unable to get the kitchen working until we had a new key.

We phoned S&S Northern who supplied our gas interlock system to see what could be done and we were absolutely delighted with their response. In a crisis situation they immediately offered to provide us with a new key free of charge and even drove 20 miles to hand the key over to us. Now that’s what I call customer service! Most importantly their help ensured we were able to get the kitchen working again for lunch time and therefore we didn’t lose any trade. A fantastic result for a small family business like ours in such circumstances!”

Steve McMahon, Managing Director of S&S Northern says, “Providing excellent customer service is fundamental to our business. We are always prepared to go that extra mile, in this case literally, for our customers! As a small family business ourselves, we understood the impact that a very unfortunate event could have had on Leaf, so we wanted to do everything we could to help them get back to business.”

S&S Northern design, manufacture and supply gas interlock systems for commercial kitchens. All new or refurbished commercial kitchens are now required to fit a gas interlock system in order to meet BS6173:2009. S&S Northern have supplied gas safety systems to The House of Parliament, TV’s Hell’s Kitchen, Old Trafford cricket ground, Pizza Hut, Burger King, Edinburgh Castle and many restaurants across the country.

For more information on gas interlock systems for commercial kitchens…

Call S&S Northern on 01257 470983

email info@snsnorthern.com

or visit www.snsnorthern.com

Publisher Comment – There is no doubt about it…in business customer service is THE differentiating factor. I think this applies to every line of business but in Hospitality and Catering more than most. We applaud the service provided here by S&S and have no doubt that The Leaf Tea Shop and Bar will not be looking at alternative suppliers at any point soon as the service they received has consolidated the business relationship. Congratulations to S&S Northern on living service not just talking about it!

Denis Sheehan, Publisher, H and C News

Delicious ‘Simply Fantastico’ Italian meals to be created exclusively for Innovate’s school cafés.

Innovate Services Ltd, the innovative catering facilities operator to the education sector, has today announced an exclusive partnership with popular Italian chef, entrepreneur and author, Gino D’Acampo.  As part of the relationship, Gino D’Acampo has created 12 authentic Italian pasta recipes that will be freshly served at all of Innovate’s 65 school, academies and college cafes across the UK.

Gino D’Acampo, who is also a familiar face through his many TV appearances, has designed the dishes as part of a new ‘Simply Fantastico’ range to offer students a choice of real Italian pastas that are packed with goodness and are based on traditional recipes using wholesome, honest ingredients.

The range is launching at all of Innovate’s dining facilities when the students return from the half-term break in February, and will be available as plated meal options or packaged in specially designed ‘grab and go’ insulated cartons.

In the meantime, Gino D’Acampo is currently undertaking a series of road-show events to meet Innovate’s catering teams and provide live demonstrations of how the dishes are created, explain what has gone into the recipes, offer taste testings and inspire the school chefs who will be preparing the recipes with his energy, enthusiasm and passion for creating real Italian food served with style.

Commenting on the launch of ‘Simply Fantastico’, Gino D’Acampo said, “I am a passionate believer in good, fresh food and am excited to have been invited by Innovate to deliver a new range of real Italian pasta dishes to school and college students across the UK.

The dishes use the very best quality ingredients that are full of goodness and taste great. They are based on some of my family favourites and so I hope the students enjoy the meals as much as I did when I was growing up.

Not only that, the meals are really easy to recreate and so recipe cards will be available so students can make the dishes at home with their families.”

Derick Martin, co-founder and CEO of Innovate Services said, “We are excited to exclusively partner with Gino D’Acampo to deliver the new ‘Simply Fantastico’ range of dishes to students and staff at all of our school, academy and college cafes.

Gino has come up with 12 delicious recipes that are bursting with flavour. We will continue to work with Gino in the coming months to develop additional authentic Italian dishes and I am sure that the students who visit our cafes will be impressed with the choices available.  And, it goes without saying that all the recipes meet the school’s nutritional food standards, so parents can rest assured that the meals not only taste great, but are full of goodness too.”

For further information regarding Innovate Services, visit www.innovate-services.com

* Fiery celebrity chef declared war on father in law
* Public spat saw Ramsay’s wife Tana sever ties with her parents
* Truce finally called after pair agree to settlement

A £2million truce was called yesterday in the bitter feud ripping through Gordon Ramsay’s family and business empire.

The celebrity chef had accused his father-in-law Chris Hutcheson of hacking into private emails and plundering £1.4million from his restaurant empire to finance his serial womanising.

Hutcheson, who denied the claims, branded Ramsay a fame-obsessed ‘monster’ and sued him for unfair dismissal and unpaid wages.

Ramsay’s wife Tana sided with her husband and severed ties with her parents after discovering her philandering father had kept a second family secret from her for 30 years.

But the very public spat is now at an end after Ramsay and Hutcheson, his former business partner, friend and close confidant, reached a £2million settlement, although the Kitchen Nightmares star has also run up a huge legal bill.

Ramsay’s publicist, Freud Communications, said: ‘Gordon Ramsay and Gordon Ramsay Holdings have reached a settlement with Chris Hutcheson and other members of the Hutcheson family.

Click here for more details from Mail Online

The Market Hotel will be Fuller’s first pub in Reigate and the company will be bringing its inimitable combination of outstanding cask ales, delicious fresh food, great wines and engaging service to this fine old establishment.

Managing Director of Fuller’s Inns, Jonathon Swaine, commented: “The Market Hotel is a grand old pub in a commanding position on the High Street in Reigate. It is right at the centre of the town and I am really looking forward to bringing the Fuller’s ethos to the business and showing Reigate what a good, traditional British pub is all about.   “We will be making only small behind-the-scenes changes in the short term to bring the pub up to Fuller’s standards.

However there are some exciting plans in development for later in the year, including introducing a breakfast offer and making some significant changes to the pub garden, a feature which makes the pub stand out from the competition in the centre of Reigate. Watch this space.”   The Market Hotel will operate in Fuller’s managed division and brings the total number of pubs in the Fuller’s estate to 367.

Following a multi-million pound investment programme, Cliveden will consolidate its position as one of the best known country house hotels in the UK.

Chris Day, International Managing Director of Christie + Co, said: “The sale of Cliveden is the pinnacle of our work to date on behalf of the Administrators of von Essen Hotels. This renowned hotel has a new owner who will make complete the investment required to meet the growing demands of the international leisure and corporate customers of the business.

We are delighted to announce this long awaited sale which will be followed by more sales on behalf of the Administrators in the weeks ahead.”

“Overall 2011 has been a good year for U.K. hoteliers thanks to positive demand growth”, commented Elizabeth Randall, managing director at STR Global. “However, to reflect the uncertainty in the economy, our latest forecast for 2012 was downgraded, expecting RevPAR growth in London to reach 1.9 percent and 0.6 percent across Regional U.K.”

London saw RevPAR increase by 8.4 percent in 2011. Hotel performance showed that the events taking place in London and around the country, such as the royal wedding, the street protests and the riots in August had no significant impact on hotel performance. The royal wedding week in April 2011 saw actual RevPAR decline by 19.4 percent. Across all segments in the capital, RevPAR growth benefited from increasing average daily rate (ADR) between 5.7 percent (Midscale and Economy) and 10.4 percent (Upscale and Upper Midscale).

Regional U.K. RevPAR increased by 1.5 percent in 2011. In the regions, RevPAR growth resulted from improving occupancy, which increased modestly across all market classes, from 1.2 percent (Luxury and Upper Upscale) to 3.5 percent (Midscale and Economy). The Economy and Midscale class was the only segment in 2011 experiencing ADR decline (-2.1 percent).

Looking at regional cities, RevPAR growth was the result of a mixed growth between rate and occupancy. Amongst the best performers in 2011, Reading and Harrogate reported increases in occupancy, 7.6 percent and 6.0 percent, respectively, compared to the previous year.

Oxford and Brighton, with ADR increases of 4.9 percent and 4.6 percent, respectively, were also the markets with the strongest ADR growth in the regions. Harrogate, with new supply growth in 2011 (+3.5 percent), gained from increased demand (+9.7 percent) supporting its RevPAR growth.

Across Regional U.K., the highest occupancy was achieved at Heathrow Airport (82.7 percent) followed by Edinburgh and York, both reaching 80.1 percent. In ADR terms, Bath, which reported the highest ADR in 2010, ended 2011 with the highest ADR in Regional U.K. at £87.33. Preston and Hull, on the other hand, saw double-digit RevPAR declines. In Preston, the decline was led by additional supply (+10.0 percent) whereas Hull’s RevPAR was led by a declining ADR of 9.0 percent to £44.84.

STR Global reports on 51 cities across the U.K., collecting performance data from more than 2,700 hotels.

About STR Global

STR Global provides clients—including hotel operators, developers, financiers, analysts and suppliers to the hotel industry—access to hotel research with regular and custom reports covering Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and South America.

STR Global provides a single source of global hotel data covering daily and monthly performance data, forecasts, annual profitability, pipeline and census information. STR Global is part of the STR family of companies and is proudly associated with STR, RRC Associates, STR Analytics, and HotelNewsNow.com.

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