Pandemic sends Wetherspoons plunging to record £154m loss

Wetherspoons has sunk to a record annual loss as its chairman warned the pub chain is struggling to recruit enough staff in popular staycation areas.

JD Wetherspoon, one of Britain's largest pub operators with 861 premises, posted a £154.7m loss for the year to July 25, compared to a £34.1m loss a year earlier.

It said sales slipped 39pc to £771.6m, after the UK moved "in succession, from lockdown, to ‘Eat Out to Help Out’, to curfews, to firebreaks, to pints with a substantial meal only, to different tier systems and to further lockdowns".

Tim Martin said: “Pubs have been at the forefront of business closures during the pandemic, at great cost to the industry - but at even greater cost to the Treasury."

He branded "the precedent set by the government for the use of lockdowns and draconian restrictions,
imposed under emergency powers" as a "threat to civil society and democracy”.

Pubs were only allowed to start serving indoors again in mid-May but were then subject to social distancing restrictions, which prevented ordering at the bar, until July 19.

Wetherspoons said it customers had now largely returned, with like-for-like sales in the first nine weeks of the new financial year down just 8.7pc compared with the same period in 2019.

The chain has several sites at airports where trading was still being affected by fewer passengers, with sales down 47pc on pre-pandemic levels.

Wetherspoons also has a higher exposure to city centres than rivals, which have managed to bounce back ahead of 2019 levels already.

Mr Martin said Wetherspoons was "cautiously optimistic" about the coming year "on the basis that there is no further resort to lockdowns or onerous restrictions". Shares were up 3pc in afternoon trading.

The company employs about 42,000 people across the UK, having hired around 3,000 people over the past financial year.

Brexiteer Mr Martin said Wetherspoon had "received a reasonable number of applications for vacancies, as indicated by the increase in employee numbers, but some areas of the country, especially 'staycation' areas in the West Country and elsewhere, have found it hard to attract staff".