A WESTCLIFF hotel that was falsely trading as a four-star venue, has been found out by an inquisitive guest.

The grading for the Balmoral Hotel, in Valkyrie Road, had lapsed and not been reacredited by the British Tourist Board since last year. Therefore, it currently has no stars at all.

The misleading claim was discovered by a visitor who contacted the board after saying he was unhappy with his stay.

The visitor, who didn’t wish to be named, said: “I wasn’t happy with the service I got at the hotel and contacted the tourist board to see why they had given them this rating.

“I was shocked to find they hadn’t been inspected for some time and currently had no rating.”

The hotel has both hotel rooms and guest apartments, and on Friday was still described on its website as being rated four stars by the British Tourist Board despite being told to remove the rating.

Stuart Barrow, spokesman for Visit England, said: “As it stands, the grading of the Balmoral’s apartments has lapsed so we have asked it to take the four star sign off the website while it waits to be graded.

“It does wish to remain in the scheme and we will be assessing it at some point soon.”

He added that anyone suspecting a rating had lapsed should contact Visit England or Trading Standards, especially if they saw a business displaying the discontinued Visit England diamond ratings.

The hotel has been told to remove the Visit England rating from the apartments and its website and replace it with one stating it is awaiting assessment.

Owner Sinclair Brown said the hotel was informing callers about the status of its rating.

He said: “Our grading had lapsed, but it was just an oversight on our part and Visit England was not particularly good at warning us about it. It is the first time we have ever had a complaint. This person, who stayed in one of our apartments, made a relatively trivial complaint about handprints on a door and a couple of biscuits on the floor, but we always take our cleaning very seriously.

“It is not as if there were any mice or rats, but I guess you can’t please everyone. Our web manager has been informed about this.”

Visit England assessors rate all kinds of guest accommodation according to type and visit thousands of businesses anonymously to assess their standards and level of service.