RBS "stole" real ale hotel

The Bold Hotel, Lord Street

The Bold Hotel is a familiar sight on Lord Street, Southport. It is a residential hotel with a real ale bar and an outside seating area overlooking the town's main thoroughfare that, as you'd imagine, is very popular in summer. According to the former owners, Eddie and Cheryl Warren, their business was forced into administration by the Royal Bank of Scotland, leaving them more than £1 million out of pocket after borrowing from the state-owned bank. The trauma has cost them their livelihood and their marriage.

According to a report by Business Secretary Vince Cable, the alleged scam worked like this: RBS engineered businesses to default on their loans and then to moved them into a special division called Global Restructuring Group. Once there, the businesses were then hit with exorbitant rates and fees, which caused some of them to collapse, at which point RBS bought their property and assets on the cheap.

Eddie and Cheryl bought the hotel for £3.7 million in 2007, £1.2 million of which was their own money and the rest financed by an RBS loan. After the hotel was put into administration, West Register, an RBS property company, bought the business for a mere £1.4 million. Eddie and Cheryl insist that the hotel never ceased to be profitable, with Eddie adding simply, "They stole it."

It brings it home to you when items on the national news are reflected in businesses you are familiar with, and in this case have been drinking in. I hope that Eddie and Cheryl, as well as others who state they have been ripped off by RBS, get some justice. If Vince Cable can achieve that, I'll give him more credit than I've granted anyone in his party since the general election.