Hotel chain wants to demolish 1840s pub

A historic pub dating back to the 1840s is to be demolished to make way for an extension to a hotel.

The Glegg Arms in Heswall, Wirral, had been a part of the Beefeater chain of restaurants until it was closed down in July.

Now the neighbouring Heswall Premier Inn hotel wants to knock the pub down so it can expand.

The plan has been submitted to Wirral Council for a decision in the new year.

The Glegg Arms, on New Chester Road, opened in the 1840s as Crabbe's Inn but was renamed the Glegg Arms by 1850, according to the consumer group The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA).

The pub was taken over by Whitbread in the 1980s and was operated as a Beefeater restaurant until 4 July.

Whitbread PLC, which owns both the Beefeater and Premier Inn brands, closed the pub as part of a planned restructure which it said would see 112 restaurants shuttered and 126 others sold.

Whitbread said the Glegg Arms had been closed as part of a plan to replace some of its "lower-returning" restaurants with "higher-returning" hotel rooms.

The company said its plans would result in a reduction of 1,500 staff out of a total workforce of 37,000.

Whitbread chief executive Dominic Paul said: "I recognise that these changes will be unsettling for affected team members and we are committed to working hard to enable as many as possible of those affected to stay with Whitbread by either transferring into roles this plan will create, or by taking up other vacancies across the business more broadly through our existing recruitment activity that makes circa 15,000 hires each year."

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