ARSON experts are investigating how a hotel, earmark-ed for demolition next month, came to be destroyed by fire.
Twenty firefighters tackled the blaze at the Regency Hotel, Coatham Road, Redcar, east Cleveland, which started at about 9.15pm on Monday.
The hotel, the largest in the town, with 49 bedrooms, function rooms, conference suites and a nightclub, was to be bulldozed to make way for 42 apartments.
It has now been boarded up.
It is thought the fire started in the former nightclub at the back of the building.
Owner Malcolm McKee said he believed the fire may have been started by children and said work to strip asbestos from the building could now begin before the planned date.
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