Wetherspoons announces new wave of pub sell-offs - is your local affected?
14 November 2022, 16:11 | Updated: 14 November 2022, 16:12
Wetherspoons has said it is selling seven more pubs this week - but is your local one of the boozers facing the chop?
Listen to this article
Loading audio...
The pub chain said sales were slowing and that costs were mounting "substantially higher".
WetherspoonsI said trading was "broadly" in line with its expectations but that October had been a slower month.
Meanwhile "costs, especially in respect of labour, food and repairs, were substantially higher" in the first quarter, company bosses added.
Boss Tim Martin announced seven more pubs would be sold off this week, after the first 32 closures in September.
None of the pubs will close until the company has found a buyer, Wetherspoons said.
Wetherspoons now has 23 fewer pubs than it did in March 2021, when the company had 870 locations and was investing £150 million in upgrades and refurbishments.
Read more: Wetherspoons sells off 32 pubs as it faces £30m loss – is your local up for sale?
But Mr Martin said the firm remains "cautiously optimistic" despite the cost pressures hammering the hospitality sector.
He said he previously set out "various threats to the hospitality industry and these continue to apply".
"Those caveats aside, in the absence of further lockdowns or restrictions, the company remains cautiously optimistic about future prospects," he said.
Pubs have been knocked by a cocktail of cost increases as inflation sends prices soaring, staff demanding higher wages and waning demand among cash-strapped pub goers.
Mr Martin warned last month that the group is facing a "momentous challenge" to persuade punters back into its bars after they got used to drinking cheap supermarket beer during the pandemic.
The locations of the seven new pubs for sale have not been revealed.
Woman brawls with two rivals and a man outside Wetherspoons
The full 32 known so far are below.
Barnsley – Silkstone Inn
Beaconsfield – Hope & Champion
Bexleyheath – Wrong ‘Un
Bournemouth – Christopher Creeke
Cheltenham – Bank House
Durham – Water House
Halifax – Percy Shaw
Hanham – Jolly Sailor
Harrow – Moon on the Hill
Hove – Cliftonville Inn
London Battersea – Asparagus
London East Ham – Miller's Well
London Eltham – Bankers Draft
London Forest Gate – Hudson Bay
London Forest Hill – Capitol
London Hornsey – Toll Gate
London Holborn – Penderel's Oak
London Islington – Angel
London Palmers Green – Alfred Herring
Loughborough – Moon & Bell
Loughton – Last Post
Mansfield – Widow Frost
Middlesborough – Resolution
Purley – Foxley Hatch
Redditch – Rising Sun
Sevenoaks - Sennockian
Southampton – Admiral Sir Lucius Curtis
Stafford – Butler's Bell
Watford – Colombia Press
West Bromwich – Billiard Hall
Willenhall – Malthouse
Wirral – John Masefield
