Let's hope Kingswood Warren doesn't go the same way!

SJB

The Hotel was just the old main house.  The conference centre is a separate concern and there is also still a training facility...but for how long?

Thanks for the link, why doesnt this surprise me one little bit.

These people know the price of everything but the value of nothing, and when the chickens come home to roost (untrained staff or through the roof prices from outside providers) then of course they have long gone.
We have had plenty of examples of this including one gentleman who was not fit to run a whelk stall, let alone Engineering and had a, lets say, varying career before and after the BBC.  And of course not long after these clowns managed to get rid of BBC Engineering for good, what an achievement.  The fate of BBC Technology speaks for itself.

PS I know WN Hall was a Hotel but I actually remember having lectures in it, getting TDE (upstairs) and of course the course photos on the croquet lawn !! And there was a splendid office for Dr.K.R.Sturley who was the Boss when I arrived as a green TA.

This is taken from Ariel, w/c 13/02/06:

B&B FOR WOOD NORTON TRAINEES
by Clare Bolt

Trainees at Wood Norton have been moved into hotels and B&Bs in response to a notice from the owners of the conference centre that it would no longer provide accommodation for the BBC. The corporation was told the arrangement would end on January 31, with the closure of the conference
centre, which includes the accommodation block. The BBC also received formal notification that its training studios and classrooms would be disconnected from a sewage plant, located on land belonging to the hall and conference centre.

Although the conference centre is still open, the sewage facilities remain under threat. 'There's a common sewage plant which serves training, which the BBC has a right to use,' lecturer Kevin Doig explains. 'We have no control of it because it's not on our land, and if the power to the plant is cut there are  implications [there is a risk of a fine for the BBC if tanks are contaminated or overflow with waste water].'

The BBC has closed all the toilets on site and hired portable loos. The restaurant has scaled back its operation, from serving three meals a day to offering only a lunch service on  just three days a week.  Trainees will continue to be booked into hotels until further notice.

Course administration manager Anne Harwood and her team are doing 'a sterling job', says senior trainer Andy Woodhouse. Between March 14-17 - when hotels are full with Cheltenham Festival racegoers - BBC courses have been rearranged or postponed. At this time of year around 50 people a week arrive at Wood Norton for training, with some 30 rooms a night needed to accommodate them.

Doig blames the current difficulties on the BBC's decision to sell the residential block and sewage plant in 2002. They were sold to an overseas buyer.  'It must have crossed people's minds that if we don't have accommodation, and sewage is a problem on site, the longevity of training and development at Wood Norton is an issue,' he says. 'But against that, there's the cost of moving us, which would run into millions.'

BBC property is working on a number of long-term strategies aimed at making the site more self sufficient. Meanwhile, from a training point of view, the BBC says it is 'business as usual'. 'We had contingency plans in place - providing alternative accommodation and portable loos - and swung into action quickly,' it says.