RETIRED Daily Echo business editor Mike Ford has embarked on a new business venture, opening a restaurant in the south of France.

He and wife Jill have teamed up with daughter Claire James, and her French-born partner Laurent Spinard, to buy the restaurant in Argeles sur Mer.

The market town and beach and sailing resort is on the southernmost part of the Mediterranean coast, near the Spanish border.

With Laurent's brother Nicolas Grimaldi, 26, and his partner Aurelie, they have bought La Gamate restaurant in the old town centre. The town stands on a sheltered bay, bordered by the point where the southern end of the Pyrenees drops into the sea, and has more than 12 miles of largely undeveloped sandy beaches, along with some of the biggest marinas in France.

It sees its normal population of below 10,000 swell to about 95,000 in the summer. Laurent, 32, was formerly restaurant manager at Braseria Casa Bodega at Romsey from the time it opened and previously worked at Southampton's five-star De Vere Grand Harbour Hotel, and also worked at restaurants in London.

Claire was a freelance hairdresser in Romsey. Nicolas was chef at the exclusive five-star golf club at the adjoining Mediterranean beach and marina resort of St Cyprien.

Mike, who lives near Romsey and edits a sailing magazine and a website for the Royal Southampton Yacht Club, retired from the Daily Echo a year ago after decades of service.

He said: "The new venture is a small town centre restaurant, which can seat up to 50 people, and, while the beach is less than a mile away, we have deliberately kept to the thriving town centre where there is a year-round business.

"It's early days, and day to day operation is in the hands of Laurent and Nico who both have a background in catering and fine dining."