A LEADING pub operator has acquired five East Lancashire pubs as part of a £35 million deal.

Pubmaster, which recently bought 54 hostleries from the Nelson-based Devonshire Pub Company, has acquired Midlands operator Mercury Taverns in the latest venture.

The sale includes three Burnley pubs, The Fleece, Accrington Road, The Griffin, Rossendale Road, and The Wellington, Todmorden Road, as well as The Station Hotel, Hibson Road, Nelson, and The Union in Market Street, Colne. A spokesman for Pubmaster said the company did not intend to make any drastic changes to the way the pubs are run or the conditions of existing tenants.

Pubmaster's chief executive John Sands added: "This purchase is consistent with our strategy of building a high quality tenanted estate and we will continue to acquire good quality pubs. We are seeing good results from the company's £22 million investment programme in our existing estate."

Other pubs acquired by the company in the Mercury Taverns deal are in the North West as well as South Wales, the North East, Midlands and Scotland.

The deal represents the biggest addition to the Pubmaster estate for two years and the company nows runs 1,602 pubs nationally.

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