Wetherspoon's boss Tim Martin has promised he has not given up on the drinkers of Hinckley aftter the firm announced plans to shut its only pub in the town.
The pub chain says The Baron of Hinckley will close in September next year when its lease on the premises in Regent Street runs out.
However Mr Martin, chairman and founder of the firm which has some 900 pubs, has told Leicestershire Live he aims to buy a new premises somewhere in the town and have it open within the next "two or three years".
He said: “We have a few leaseholds pubs around the country and the leases are either coming to an end or there is some sort of break clause in them.
“We sometimes think we can relocate to a better site.
“That’s usually why.
“There is a lot of controversy over that in the county generally."
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He added: “About 60 per cent of our pubs are freehold. We want to get that up to 70 per cent or 75.”
“The drinkers of Hinckley can reproach me if they haven’t got another pub there within two or three years.
“We are opening about one pub a month at the moment so we are still in expansion mode – not as much as we expanded in the past because we already have pubs in most of the obvious places.
"There will be no job losses, all staff will be relocated to our numerous pubs within the area.
“The pub will remain trading as normal, until at least the end of August 2019.”
Speaking after the closure of The Baron was announced Richard Lewin, spokesman for the Campaign for Real Ale, (Camra), in Hinckley and Bosworth, said: “There are a lot of Wetherspoons pubs in Camra’s Good Beer Guide.
“They do well across the country, so it’s a surprise to hear this.
“We would hope that some other pub company will step in and take it on.
“It’s a community asset and its trade seems to be pretty good throughout the day and into the evening.
“Their beers are generally in good condition and their food trade always seems healthy.
“The pub scene in Hinckley is pretty good and there’s a wide range of owners running different types of pubs.
“There are eight of them in the 2019 Good Beer Guide and we do a very popular pub trail which people travel from all over the Midlands to visit.
