Hotel price set at £2 1/2 m

A Newark hotel that once belonged to a millionaire who conspired to smuggle heroin into the UK is up for sale at £2 1/2m.

Millgate House Hotel, which was owned by Robert William Briggs-Price, formerly of Great North Road, Newark, is in receivership under the Criminal Justice Act 1988 and the Drug Trafficking Act 1994.

Briggs-Price was gaoled at Nottingham Crown Court in April, 2003, for 17 years after being convicted of conspiring to import £10m-worth of heroin.

He later admitted conspiring to smuggle cigarettes and received a concurrent 4 1/2-year sentence.

In 2005 a confiscation order was imposed on Briggs-Price.

In January this year, at London’s Criminal Appeal Court, an appeal by Briggs-Price to overturn the order was dismissed.

The appeal judge ordered that he should pay £3.1m.

Briggs-Price claimed the order was a violation of his human rights.

Millgate House Hotel, which is listed for protection, is being marketed by property consultants, surveyors and valuers, Edward Symmons, and a specialist property agent and valuer for the hotel and licensed property market, Colliers Robert Barry, on the instructions of the receiver, Mr Nick O’Reilly, of Vantis.

The Edward Symmons website says the hotel has 66 bedrooms — 37 in the main hotel and 29 in several houses in surrounding streets.

It says the hotel is run by management and staff and has been under the control of Vantis Plc since June 2000 and still operates as a going concern.

The website said the decision to sell gave buyers the opportunity to take on an established business that offered scope to increase turnover and profit.

It said the bar, dining and meeting facilities had been operated on a low-key basis by the current management.