Polizzis push reopening of the Star in Alfriston to March 2021

Olga and Alex Polizzi have announced that the revised reopening date for the Star in Alfriston, East Sussex, will be 1 March 2021, in order to allow them to refurbish the building and reduce the room count.

The Grade II-listed, 15th-century property was planned to reopen this year; however, Olga said: “We have decided to cope with the continuing uncertainty due to the ghastly virus by bringing forward our Phase 2 schedule.

"Instead of waiting a few years for the pain of the initial building work to fade, we will now be completing the whole building, overhauling every bedroom and ensuring in the process that none of our guests will be dependent on the old, redundant single-pipe heating system, which we discovered at times only provided a dribble of hot water to the furthest rooms.”

The room count will be reduced from 37 to 30, as 12 of the property’s smallest bedrooms and bathrooms will be combined to create eight larger bedrooms.

Olga is the owner of Hotel Tresanton in Cornwall and Hotel Endsleigh in Devon, the sister of Sir Rocco Forte and director of design for Rocco Forte Hotels. She bought the East Sussex site in December last year off a guide price of £2.68m with her daughter Alex, star of Channel 5 show The Hotel Inspector. It is the pair’s first official joint venture.