A HOTEL chain with branches across Scotland only has its Dunbar hotel open.

The Pine Marten, which is owned by Marston’s, is currently being used by key workers who are involved in a major maintenance project at Torness Power Station.

A statutory outage is currently ongoing at the nuclear power station, to the south-east of the town, with work due to run until the beginning of April.

More than 500 contractors are used to help carry out 12,000 separate pieces of work at the station.

Ahead of the works getting under way, about 350 of the contractors were expected to be staying in local accommodation.

Marston’s has 60 branches across Britain, with eight, from Peterhead to Irvine, spread throughout Scotland.

However, none of the seven other Scottish hotels are currently open due to coronavirus restrictions.

A spokeswoman for the hotel chain said: “Currently, a number of key workers are staying at the Pine Marten, using the hotel facility on a room-only basis.

“The site is closed to the public, but is offering rooms to support key workers and on site there are strict hygiene measures.

“Other sites within the Marston’s estate have also offered their accommodation facilities where there is local key worker demand.”

It is a similar story at the Dunmuir Hotel in the town.

Philip Mellor, owner of the hotel on the town’s Newhouse Terrace, said that a number of hotels in the town and surrounding caravan parks were providing accommodation for key workers.

He said: “You have a huge benefit to Dunbar as a town because all our accommodation providers are busy with key workers, whereas a lot of hotels elsewhere are closed.

“I’ve got friends and they don’t know when they can open.

“Given the latest announcement, they thought March and in time for Easter but that’s looking unlikely.

“It’s fantastic news for Dunbar and breaks the mould for other towns in Scotland.”

Measures are in place at the hotel, including a bed and breakfast ‘grab and go’ service where food is left at the room door of the worker, to prevent the potential spread of coronavirus.

The town's Royal Mackintosh Hotel is also open for key workers, as are the Bayswell Park Hotel and Hillside Hotel.

The outage, when a power station is shut down for essential maintenance, had been due to take place last summer.

However, it was pushed back to this year with the agreement of the regulator to allow better arrangements and mitigations to be put in place to manage Covid-19.

Two-metre social distancing is in place at the power station, with thermal cameras as people enter the site.

Every person who comes on site also has to provide a negative test for coronavirus before they come through the gates.

The project at the power station, which opened in 1988, costs £25 million.