A PUB chain says some of its Oxfordshire pubs will remain temporarily closed because they will be impacted by social distancing more than others.

The Falklands Arms in Great Tew near Chipping Norton and The Victoria Arms in Old Marston run by Wadworth will stay shut, despite the hospitality industry being allowed to reopen from July 4.

But an announcement on the pubs' Facebook pages says there are no plans to open 'for the forseeable future'.

Staff said it was 'rather upsetting' that Wadworth let the public know before notifying them first.

Oxford Mail:

The pub chain said it is doing a phased reopening of the sites from July 22 and that it announced the reopening and temporary closure of pubs on Facebook so that customers would be aware.

A spokesperson from Wadworth, said: "We expect, by making our pubs Covid Secure, they won’t be trading at 100 per cent for some considerable time.   The social distancing and new ways of working will currently impact some sites more and therefore we have made the decision to keep those pubs temporarily closed.  We will continue to review this situation. 

"On receiving the Government guidance we needed to carefully review each pub as to whether it could reopen safely for our customers and people.  We announced those reopening and remaining temporarily closed on individual pub sites so customers were made aware and we are continuing communications with our teams."