Flat Cap Hotels launches crowdfunding campaign

Flat Cap Hotels has launched a £250,000 crowdfunding campaign to open its second hotel in the North of England.

Founders Oliver and Dominic Heywood are aiming to transform a disused Crown Court in Knutsford into ‘the most prestigious conference and banqueting venue in the North West’.

The former Court Room One will become a glass-domed events space for up to 550 guests, while the brothers are aiming to transform Court Room Two into a 150-cover restaurant and bar complete with private dining in the former jail cells.

There are also plans to open 10 luxury bedrooms with 50 more planned for construction in 2017.

The project is set to create up to 60 jobs for the local economy and will provide apprenticeships and NVQ programmes.

It forms part of a wider plan for Flat Cap to open five quirky hotels by 2019, each with ‘unique style, history and character’.

“Together as brothers we live and breathe the business and the operations,” said Oliver in a video on the crowdfunding page.

“We were looking at buildings that had a huge amount of history and a historical character, the nature of what we want to do is bring these in to the public use.”

The Heywoods opened their first 20-room hotel The Vicarage in Holmes Chapel, Cheshire in 2015.

The company said in a statement that there were ‘additional selected properties’ in the pipeline for future openings.

Flat Cap’s crowdfunding campaign launched on 25 July and will run for a further 59 days on Seedrs. It is the first hotel project selected to feature on the site.

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