Wetherspoon to open more pubs in region

The boss of pubs giant JD Wetherspoon today pledged to build on the success of the company by opening more outlets – with the West Midlands set to cash in.

The business, which employs 21,000 people in 743 outlets in the UK, is to invest £250 million in the new hostelries, creating another 10,000 jobs over five years. Wetherspoon chairman Tim Martin said today: "Our pubs are extremely popular and we wish to build on their success by opening more. I am confident that the new pubs will be an asset to their respective towns and cities.

"A number of the new pubs that we plan to open over the next five years will be in the West Midlands.

"The region has always been good to us and we look forward to opening more pubs and creating new jobs there."

The company – which opened its first pub in December 1979 – has confirmed that new pubs will also be built in locations including Sheffield, Livingston, Otley, New Malden, Liverpool, Haverfordwest and Newcastle.

In September it hailed its best-ever annual results after the company went back to basics to ride out the recession, serving up a selection of recession-beating beers and meals, as well as breakfasts and coffee.

It reported underlying pre-tax profits up 13.6 per cent to £66.2m and sales of £955.1m in the year to July 26, a record since the firm was incorporated in 1983.

The chain said it had taken lessons from the recessions of the 1980s and 1990s to combat tough trading conditions, "concentrating on the key ingredients of standard, service, staff training and incentives".

Wetherspoon opened 39 pubs in the last financial year and said in September that it expected to open a similar number in the current financial year.

Outlets in the West Midlands include The Moon Under Water in Wolverhampton, The Full Moon in Dudley, The Sir Henry Newbolt in Bilston, The Imperial in Walsall, The Sampson Lloyd in Smethwick and The George Hotel in Bewdley.