WETHERSPOONS has announced three pubs will be closing their doors in the new year.
The boozer has announced the closure of the pubs bringing the total number of branches set to shut to 42.
Two of the pubs will be shutting up within weeks, bringing sad news to punters.
These include The Postal Order in Worcester, which will close on January 9.
Also shutting in the new year is the The Edmund Halley in Lewisham which will close its doors on December 31.
Wetherspoons has also confirmed to The Sun that The Willow Grove in Southport will close in early 2023.
This closure will take place before April.
Further locations are set to close, with at least another 39 up for sale at the moment.
Although a Wetherspoons spokesperson said that there are no closure dates for these locations.
They will remain open and trading under the Wetherspoon brand until they are sold.
In September, the chain confirmed that it was planning to sell 32 pubs.
Last month, a further seven pubs were put up for sale.
Several pubs in London are set to be sold, including boozers in popular locations such as Islington and Battersea.
While other pubs in major towns and cities such as Southampton and Middlesbrough are also up for sale.
Pubs have been knocked by a cocktail of cost increases as inflation sends prices soaring and less demand among cash-strapped punters.
The pub chain saw like-for-like sales drop 1.1% in the five weeks to November 6 when compared with pre-pandemic trading in 2019.
In November, 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.
Here is a full list of all the pubs up for sale that we know so far:
- 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
- Middlesbrough – 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
The Sun has contacted Wetherspoons to see if any further locations have been put up for sale and will update this story when we hear back.
It’s estimated that the pub chain, known for it’s cheap drinks, employs up to 43,000 people across the UK.
According to it’s websites it boasts almost 900 pubs in towns and cities across England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, having opened it’s first establishment in 1979.
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