Bournemouth Chabad is opening a kosher hotel in the town next month.

Located on East Cliff in the heart of the Jewish community, the Water Garden Hotel will have 24 ensuite rooms and a kitchen catering for up to 50 people. Rabbi Yossie and Chanie Alperowitz will provide kashrut supervision.

The project has been largely funded by a legacy from Betty Beck, who retired to Bournemouth from London.

"It was enough to purchase an existing hotel," said local Chabad chair Andrew Kaye."She wanted it to benefit the Bournemouth community, especially the more senior members.The restaurant will also serve non-residents - there's not a lot of kosher facilities in the town. We will be catering for people across the Jewish spectrum. We can also use the hotel for meetings and functions. It will be like a community centre in the guise of a hotel."

Profits would be ploughed back into the activities of Chabad Bournemouth.

The hotel is also to house a deli stocking around 400 ranges of grocery products plus fresh meat and kiddush wine. On Fridays it will sell challah, fried fish and schnitzel,soups and cholent. Its opening times are Monday to Friday 9am until 1pm and, if demand is sufficient, to include Sunday mornings.

The seaside town, which in its 1950s heyday featured around a dozen kosher hotels, currently counts the Normandie Hotel as a kosher premises.