Residents in Marlow are divided about whether a new Wetherspoon pub is long-needed in the town or whether the popular chain is 'not posh enough' for the area.
JD Wetherspoon bought the former M&Co. building at 3 Market Square in Marlow nearly two years ago and acquired planning permission to renovate the site in November 2022.
After months of radio silence, a spokesperson for the popular pub chain told the Free Press last week that work is officially set to begin on the new venue, named The Swan Hook, in March 2024 with a projected opening date of late July, although both timeframes are subject to change.
Following the news of a summer opening for the new Wetherspoon branch, residents of the town took to social media to debate its suitability for the area - with many falling on either side of an opinion divide.
Maria Bazely wrote: "Good, at last, an affordable restaurant for us low-income people (who) still live and were born in Marlow" and Tyler Rhys Stephens added: "About time we had somewhere affordable to get drinks".
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Alex Bradley took a similar stance, writing: "At least it won't be £6 plus (for) a pint. Not everyone in Marlow is wealthy".
However, Richard Coleman said he thinks the town "has enough places to eat already", suggesting that a "cheap clothing shop" would be a better use of the former retail space, and David Taylor countered other views of endorsement by writing: "What's next, a Pound shop or a Primark?"
Other readers of the Free Press were also of two minds about the new pub, with one person declaring Marlow to "no longer (be) a posh place", while another wrote: "If you asked true town people, those whose families have lived here for more than a generation, (they'd) be 100 per cent for it coming.
"If you asked the incomers, i.e. snobs, the result would probably be different."
The Swan Hook is expected to create 50 to 60 full and part-time jobs in Marlow and is described on the planning portal as "beneficial to the vitality and viability of the town centre".
It will operate between 7am and midnight from Sunday to Thursday and from 7am to 1am on Fridays and Saturdays. A beer garden at the back of the building is expected to close at 11pm daily.
What are your thoughts on Wetherspoon opening a new pub in Marlow this summer? Let us know in the comments below.
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