[James]

His salon has been sold...

New owners hope sky is limit for salon

REBECCA GOUGH
13 August 2007 10:08

A city hairdressing salon once owned by former Big Brother celebrity Craig Coates has been taken over by new owners who will be hoping the sky is the limit for the new business.

The Craig Coates Salon in Pottergate, which opened last year but closed in April, year, has been bought by Lorraine Gray - the wife of Simon Gray, chief executive of the East Anglian Air Ambulance - and her niece Simi McGeorge.

The business will remain a hair salon, named Hooloo Voo, but will be slowly remodelled to lose the blue lighting installed by Mr Coates and reflect a more upmarket interior.

Mrs Gray and her niece, 27, purchased the salon in June this year but have already started cutting hair.

Mrs Gray, 55, an ex-administration worker for Anglia Railways, from Back Lane in Worstead, near North Walsham, said: “I gave up work about a year ago and I had all this spare time and thought about what I could do with it.

“My mum and my sister and my niece are all hairdressers so I was brought up with it and my son, Toby, was doing his apprenticeship and wanted to get back in to it so it seemed a good idea. It's in a fantastic location and the people in Pottergate have been lovely.”

The closure of Mr Coates' salon earlier this year was shrouded in mystery with a note in the window simply stating: “Sorry for the inconvenience, open soon as poss”.

The salon has stood empty for months, but now Mrs Gray and Miss McGeorge are happy to put an end to the speculation surrounding its closure and start a brand new chapter.

“My niece and I just started chatting one night, how you do, and we thought we could actually do this,” said Mrs Gray, who will be transforming the interior over the coming months by giving it a new lick of paint and putting up art work.

“We looked around and we saw some places that were quite nice but this was a lovely salon and it was already there and we couldn't believe nobody had bought it.

“We're going to take on hairdressers all over the county - it's exciting and it's going to be a really good team. It's all going really well and now all we hope for is lots of customers.”

Dozens of shoppers and workers were given glasses of sparkling wine and a look inside the salon at its launch on Saturday.

Mr Coates, from Cromer, shot to fame when he appeared on Big Brother 6 in 2005 and was the 11th contestant to leave the house, having stayed there for 11 weeks.

When asked for a comment by the Evening News Mr Coates declined to comment and said he did not have an opinion on the situation.

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