Marston's in joint venture with Travelodge
Pub operator Marston's is teaming up with Travelodge, the budget hotel operator, to co-locate pub restaurants alongside hotels.
Marston's will buying greenfield sites on busy A-roads where it can develop pubs and will lease land to Travelodge for the construction of a hotel alongside.
The first joint venture will be on a site in Wincanton, Somerset where Travelodge will construct a 57-bedroom hotel next to a 6,500 square foot Marston's pub — the two will open next year.
Marston's managing dirctor Derek Andrew said: "By co-locating with Traveldge we will be able to develop sites which would not be viable for orseles alone."
The partnership is hoping to secure two more sites this year, and a further ten next year. Marston's is set to open a total of between 20 and 25 new-build pubs per annum after ear-marking £140m of the £166m its raised through its rights issue in the summer for expansion.
Oriel Securities analyst Jeffrey Harwood has predicted that the new-build programme would add £18m to profits when completed.
He said during the summer: "The group currently has nine sites in its landbank and has an additional 20 sites which are subject to legal or planning consent. A further 25 sites are under offer or in an advanced stage of negotiation and accordingly the group is well placed to sustain an opening programme of 20-25 sites per annum.
"Marston's new build pubs are on high visibility sites and have average sales of over £20,000 per week of which 50-60% is derived from food. Marston's intends to roll out two types of new build pub: a total of 45 'Core Model' pubs will be built at an average cost of £2m.
"The trading area will be around 3,200sq ft, which is 33% larger than the average managed pub of 2,400sq ft. The second new-build pub type is a 'Magnum' Model, which is a larger scale version with a trading area of 4,800 square foot and an average cost of £2.8m."
• Get all the latest pub trade news every day direct to your inbox. Sign-up for our news alerts. Click here.
