Lord (Charles) Forte, founder of the world famous Forte hotel and restaurant chains has died at the age of 98.

Born in the Italian village of Monforte Casalaticco in 1908, the young Charles Forte moved to Scotland with his mother in 1913. By the age of 21, Lord Forte was already managing a large family run food-service business and by the late 50’s and early 60’s had acquired the London’s Waldorf hotel and registered his company on the London Stock Exchange.

From milk bar’s and catering contracts for airlines at Heathrow Airport, Lord Forte went on to become “founder member” of the London Tourist Board and to build one of the worlds most recognised hotel and restaurant brands that at it’s peak had some 940 hotels with over 97,000 rooms, the Forte portfolio also included more than 600 restaurants as well as the original Meadow Milk Bar.

The green lobby have welcomed a ‘green action plan’ that has been proposed by the London mayor Ken Livingstone. The mayor believes that taxing air travel will be the key to tackling the issue of increasing carbon emissions produced by the air travel industry.

Mayor Livingstone feels that London should lead the way in the battle against global warming and that taxation of air travel is the way to do this.