Marston's plans 20 new pub-restaurant sites

Marston's is to accelerate the roll-out of its destination pub-restaurants, with at least 20 planned for the coming year.

In a trading update ahead of the 1,600-strong pub operator's annual results, it said that this growth would be maintained for the forseeable future.

Along with the 20 pub-restaurants planned for its 2016 financial year, Marston's said it would also open two Revere sites and five Lodges.

In its destination and premium sites, like-for-like sales for the year to 3 October 2015 were up 1.8%, with food sales up 1.7%.

In Taverns, like-for-like sales were 2.0% ahead of 2014, with growth of 3.1% in the last 11 weeks.

Marston's said its franchise business, which now amounts to 550 sites, has continued to perform strongly.

Chief executive Ralph Findlay said: "Our new pub-restaurants, premium pubs and lodges have all performed well and we have good visibility over the site pipeline to underpin our future growth.

"In addition, we have substantially completed our disposal programme of smaller wet-led pubs. These actions, together with the success of franchise, have significantly transformed our pub business over the last three years."