Wetherspoon to create 1,500 jobs in the UK and Ireland

29th Dec 2014 12:05

Pub group JD Wetherspoon announced on Monday it will open 200 pubs in the next five years, which it said should create 1,500 new jobs in the UK and Ireland.The pub chain will invest around £400m in new pubs, "many of which will be in areas where Wetherspoon is not yet represented", chairman Tim Martin said.Martin has been a leading voice in the industry's campaign against what it believes are excessive taxes on pubs, which it claims puts them at a disadvantage to supermarkets able to sell cheaper beer and spirits. Martin and others have blamed the duties for a growing number of pub closures."We are proud to be creating so many new jobs," he said. "Wetherspoon paid more than £600m in taxes in our last financial year and this will rise to approximately £1bn in the course of the next five years."This month, Wetherspoon decided to stop serving Heineken in all its British and Irish pubs following a row over supplying beers to a new pub in Dun Laoghaire. The contract with Heineken included Foster's, Kronenbourg and Strongbow cider.Shares were down 2.24% to 808p on Monday at 11:56.