Rigby’s £3m vision for Kendal hall
SIMON Rigby’s Villa Group has won planning permission to convert a Victorian country house near Kendal into a £3m hotel and wedding venue.
South Lakeland Council has approved plans drawn up by the Frank Whittle Partnership to transform Brettargh Holt, near Levens into a four-star venue.
FWP’s masterplan will see the house, once occupied by an order of nuns, turned into a 20-bedroom hotel with bar and restaurant. The hotel would also have a chapel and a pavilion for weddings and other functions.
It is the latest in a series of projects FWP has carried out for Villa, including an expansion at its flagship hotel in Wrea Green on the Fylde.
Simon Rigby netted a £22m windfall when the utility services group Spice was sold to private equity investors Cinven in a £251m deal in 2010. He is also founder and director of Farmgen, an energy from waste electricity generator, and owns the Blackpool care services firm Safehands Group.
