The former home of one of St Albans’ most famous sons, Samuel Ryder, is re-opening its doors to guests as the luxurious Clarion Collection Hotel St Albans.

Previously known as the Comfort Hotel, the hotel on Holywell Hill has recently completed a £1 million refurbishment programme to bring it up to a four-star standard under the Clarion Collection brand.

“We phased the refurbishment to avoid having to close the hotel completely,” says Kishor Majithia, the hotel’s owner, “and we have focused in turn on the conference rooms, the bedrooms and, finally, the breakfast room, reception and lounge bar areas. We wanted to enhance the original features of this iconic building whilst also creating a contemporary and stylish environment for our guests and local visitors wanting to enjoy the hotels facilities.

“There is so much happening in St Albans at the moment to promote the city as a high quality destination for tourism and business. Our investment demonstrates the confidence we have in the future of St Albans and the important role that we believe our hotel can play in supporting the continuing success of this exciting and historic city.

“We are looking forward to working with the businesses and attractions of St Albans and invite them to come and see the hotel for themselves.”

As we hear about both EDF and British Gas announcing around a 10 per cent increase in fuel costs I wonder how many businesses are aware of the simple steps they can take to make some significant savings.

Why are so many office lights around the city left on? Do you leave your computers on overnight?

Steve Bignell, managing director of Sera Technologies said: “It doesn’t have to be expensive to make small adjustments and manage what you have now to see a significant reduction in future costs. Simply switching off the lights and computers you will save money instantly.”

STANTA Business Centre who are our accommodation sponsors and provide us with free office space converted all the lighting here in our building to low energy LED lighting. If you would like to find out more about this and would like an energy audit of your office premises contact www.seratech.co.uk or call Steve Bignell on 01727 600102.

STANTA are pleased to announce three new directors have joined their board. Aarti Parmer, a Chamber member from the prestigious AV82 retailer in Harpenden brings a wealth of marketing and communications expertise; Cathy Phillips is a senior finance professional and Sophie Burnett’s PA Business Support business offers a range of virtual secretarial, administrative and lifestyle services so she has day-to-day experience of running and marketing her own business which is STANTA’s core function.

Executive director Mel Hilbrown said: “We are excited at the prospect of being able to use the expertise and experience of these three directors to help STANTA move forward and to help us become the first point of call for any new business starting up or developing.”

At advice meetings, which are free for pre-start businesses or those in their first year of trading, clients are given information sheets on issues such as choosing the legal status of your business, keeping books, writing a business plan, legalities of working from home, sources of finance, documents you must keep, to name a few.

The meeting is followed up with an email listing action points that were discussed. Once a business is established, STANTA can provide office space on a no long-term commitment basis with an all-inclusive monthly fee payable, which makes budgeting easy.

For full details of STANTA’s services visit www.stanta.co.uk or follow them on Facebook or Twitter @StantaAdvice. They currently have some office space suitable for one to eight people – for more details call 01727 837760.

We welcome the following new businesses to the Chamber: Arena Taxis, Beatbike Studios, West End Training, St Albans CLDT Herts County Council, Bistro Paprika, Seymour Styles and Kerry Pollard.