Wetherspoon announces closure of seven more pubs

Wetherspoon will sell another seven pubs, taking the total number of venues affected this year to 39.

It comes as the pub chain revealed slowing sales and said it is facing ‘substantially higher’ costs across the group.

The chain announced in September it was closing 32 of its venues but it has not announced the location of the latest seven.

The venues would continue to trade until a buyer was found and if no sale can be agreed then they will stay open as normal Wetherspoon.

Wetherspoon has seen like-for-like sales drop 1.1% in the five weeks to November 6 when compared with pre-pandemic trading in 2019, having risen by 1.5% in the previous nine weeks.

It said trading was ‘broadly’ in line with its expectations but October had been a slower month.

‘Costs, especially in respect of labour, food and repairs, were substantially higher’ in the first quarter, the group added.

Wetherspoon chairman Tim 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.

It is not just Wetherspoon which is impacted by cost increases as inflation soars.

Pubs across the country have been knocked by a cocktail of staff demanding higher wages and waning demand among cash-strapped pub goers.

Mr Martin warned last month 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.

Below is a list of the 32 known Wetherspoon pubs up for sale:

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

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