Part of Shropshire hotel turned into small business park
Part of a Shropshire hotel has been turned into a business park after Covid restrictions caused it to close.
Units at The Raven Hotel in Much Wenlock have been let to other businesses in the area as the crisis caused the business to diversify.
Suzanne-marie Campbell, of Aspire Accountancy and Bookkeeping Services which manages the hotel, said: "The hotel was forced to shut in March as was the rest of the hospitality industry.
"When this happened we reassessed the situation and as we are lucky enough to also have an artisan marketplace next door we were able to keep that open and also offer the delivery of grocery hampers with fresh fruit and veg, fish and meat to those who were self isolating locally.
"The staff have worked very hard in extremely tough times to maintain the high levels of customer service at The Raven.
"We have developed our other offerings through the lockdown period to meet people's needs and compliment people's habits. We have also done our level best to maintain a constant supply of foods for those with allergies as many of our customers have special dietary requirements.
Benefit
"Our attention then turned to the hotel as a whole and how we might improve the place before reopening as this seems an ideal time to do so. As such we have overhauled many of the bedrooms, updated the bar with a large TV for sports and sourced popular local ales and wines for our customers to enjoy going forward.
"The Forge has always been a standalone building which boasted six en suite bedrooms. We only really use these as overflow rooms. In order to do what we can to support our fellow small business we decided to create a small business village as it were in the forge. We advertised on social media and within three hours had let out four of the six units."
Several businesses – Facebox Aestetics, Charlies Angels Cleaning Services and Heavenly Wedding Belles – will be operating from the site.
Suzanne added: "Small businesses supporting each other through tough times makes us all stronger as a unit and already we have seen interactions between the businesses and also between them and us. We think the services they provide will enhance the packages we can offer at the hotel.
"We also hope that by expanding the commercial units in Wenlock we will bring more foot fall to the town for everyone's benefit.
"We are looking to reopen as soon as we can obviously and have put several measure in place to ensure the safety of both our staff and guests."
