Pictured above: (L to R): Andrew Lee (Challinors), Fred Bartram (developer and investor) and Paolo Recina (manager), at the soon-to-be opened, newly developed The Hare & Five Hounds Hotel and Bellagio Italian restaurant in West Bromwich.

A group of Black Country businessmen are fulfilling a life time ambition to create a West Bromwich venue where visitors can dine and stay in luxury.

After an investment of close to £1 million, the group of three local businessmen - Fred Bartram, Craig Hodson and Stewart Bowen - will later this month (March) open the doors to The Hare & Five Hounds Hotel and Bellagio Italian restaurant, after an intensive four month renovation and refurbishment project.

Fred Bartram, who is committed to his local area, together with his partners are each directors of a Tipton based engineering and construction group which specialises in developing and refurbishing properties.  They have spent their working lives in and around Sandwell and all are based locally to the former Five Ways site in West Bromwich.

The new hotel and restaurant will be managed by Paolo Recina.

Paolo has a high profile.  He is an experienced and well respected manager, formerly at San Carlo, one of Birmingham's most well known restaurants. During his time as manager, the restaurant won many accolades, including The Times Top Ten Italian Restaurants and Les Routiers Hospitality and Service Award.

The former Five Ways public house has been renamed and renovated, incorporating a good quality hotel and Italian restaurant.  The hotel will provide 12 bedrooms, all of which are en-suite, including one suite for disabled occupants.  All follow the venue's contemporary 'with a twist' interior design.  The Bellagio Restaurant will cater for 100 plus diners, serving both lunch and dinner. It will offer traditional Italian cuisine and will have the benefit of an exclusive hotel bar.

"The people of West Bromwich may know of the somewhat chequered past of the Five Ways," comments Fred Bartram, "mostly recently when it became known as a 'problem pub', culminating with the local police objecting to the licence and ultimately the pub was closed down."

"Above all, I would like all the local residents to be assured that the all new Hare & Five Hounds Hotel and Bellagio Restaurant will be a totally different venue to its predecessor.  We have carefully developed the site to create a venue that West Bromwich will be proud of and one which we have built with the focus of it meeting a very high standard and hopefully it will attract a different clientele.

"To ensure its commercial viability, it has been necessary to secure a 24-hour licence for the entire venue. For this we needed to make an application to the local authority for a Premises Licence. However from an early stage it became apparent that there would be a number of objections to the licence from the local residents and subsequently the Environmental Health division at Sandwell Council."

It was at this point that the venue's investors and developers turned to local law firm Challinors, which has an office in West Bromwich, to assist in the licence application, part of which was to reassure the local community of the plans for the venue.

Challinors' Andrew Lee, a solicitor in the firm's licensing team and Dispute Resolution Group, explains: "Fred Bartram and his colleagues recognised the importance of reassuring the licensing committee that the new Five Ways venue is an entirely different concept to what existed before, and that it is fundamentally different in terms of the services it will provide and its place within the local community.

"The Hare & Five Hounds is first and foremost a high class restaurant and hotel with the emphasis being placed on its high quality food and accommodation. There will be a small and exclusive public bar but there is certainly no intention of returning the venue into a 'drinker's pub', which would be entirely counter productive.

"We took proactive steps to include a detailed package of self imposed conditions in the licence application, which was key to demonstrating to the Local Authority and the local residents the very genuine intentions of Fred and his fellow investors, and the venue's management team. For the venue to be viable, it was essential that the new venture be able to engage in licensable activities 24-hours a day for its residents. If the licensing committee had imposed onerous conditions on the venue's licence, this would have seriously impinged on the running of the Hare and Five Hounds."

After a hearing in front of the Licensing Committee at Sandwell Council, the licence was granted. "The self imposed conditions on our licence allow us to manage the venue effectively," says Fred Bartram. "It will ensure it remains as a high quality venue and in no way runs the risk of returning to its past.

"We took the decision to apply for a totally new licence for the venue, rather than opt to apply to have the old premises licence transferred," he adds. "This is a tangible demonstration of the new venue having a totally fresh, clean start. The team at Challinors applied extreme care and thought to the conditions of the licence to achieve this objective, taking into account the commerciality and public interest issues at stake."

The Hare & Five Hounds Hotel & Bellagio Restaurant has recruited a team of staff from the local area, initially creating 25 jobs including waiters, chamber maids, receptionists and bar staff. It will open to diners and residents from late March 2010. For more information on the Bellagio Restaurant, Tel: 0121 500 2818 or for hotel reservations Tel: 0121 500 2811.

Challinors has offices in Birmingham, West Bromwich, Wolverhampton, Halesowen and Nottingham. The firm has 24 partners and over 100 fee earners, and is ranked as one of the top legal firms in the West Midlands, being Number 1 in the Chambers UK Directory in a number of categories, including Clinical Negligence.