Charity hotel on market for pounds 9m; Cash from Hall sale is for community.

Byline: Iain Laing

THE millionaire businessman who wants to sell his luxury Northumberland hotel and give the profits to charity has put it on the market for pounds 9m.

Brian Burnie has spent pounds 16m over the last 14 years transforming the 191-year-old Doxford Hall into a lavish spa hotel and he is now trying to sell the newly-opened business, its nine-acre estate and three houses.

The 65-year-old built up a fortune heading Newcastle-based Kelburn Recruitment and plans to spend the proceeds of the sale buying and running 25 minibuses to carry cancer patients to hospital.

The hotel has just been put on the market by property agency Knight Frank and has quickly attracted attention from big hotel groups from around the world.

But Heaton-born Mr Burnie, who became a well-known Tyneside entrepreneur after starting work at 15 as a grocery delivery boy, hopes it may attract interest from another generous businessman.

"We have had a lot of interest already and I have just been taking the chairman and chief executive of a large hotel group around.

"But I would like to think it may also attract bids from businesses who appreciate what I am trying to do here," he said yesterday.

"The market is difficult for the leisure sector but we have only been open a few months and built a really good business here already and the turnover is projected to be around pounds 1.5m for the first year and it will grow after that."

Knight Frank said the asking price should be achievable because of the quality of the Doxford Hall development which saw the building designed by Grainger Town architect John Dobson and lovingly finished by North East craftspeople.

Leigh Parsons, of Knight Frank, said: "We are looking for a national or international hotel group and there has been some very positive vibes from the market place.

"It's up for pounds 9m and it is well worth that. There will be a lot of interest. It is a unique property and a lot of money has been spent on it, whereas most hotels coming on the market are tired or the business has not been doing well. It is completely the opposite here. It is a question of companies finding the right financial backing to buy it.

"I would like to think we can get a sale this year. There may be some interest from wealthy individuals attracted because of what Mr Burnie is going to do with the profits but mostly it is hard cash that talks at the moment."

Mr Burnie, who has given thousands of pounds to cancer charities and whose wife Shirley recovered from cancer four years ago, plans to buy minibuses and work with the Marie Curie Cancer Care charity trust to help sufferers in north Northumberland travel to hospital.

"I want to be remembered not from what we have done with building up the hotel or what I did in business but for what I will do for the community. There are a lot of things that are more important than money," he said.

He and his wife plan to move to somewhere "quiet, small and modern" after they have sold the estate where they have lived since they bought the property in 1993 for pounds 500,000.

CAPTION(S):

HELPING OTHERS Brian Burnie of Doxford Hall.