Premier Inn owner Whitbread is to cut about 3,800 jobs in the UK and Ireland and shut its remaining Beefeater and Brewers Fayre restaurants as it resets its five-year business strategy, amid tax rises.

In recent years, Whitbread has invested heavily in new Premier Inn hotels across Oxfordshire including those in Abingdon, and in Oxford city centre opposite the Westgate Centre, and at Botley.

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While some Premier Inn hotels in the county now have restaurants converted to the chain’s in-house Thyme brand, a few old-fashioned Beefeater and Brewers Fayre restaurants remain.

They include the Longwall Beefeater in Cowley, Bicester Premier Inn (Brewers Fayre), the Beefeater restaurant at Oxford Kidlington (Airport) Hotel, and the Applecart Beefeater at the Premier Inn for Didcot.

The cuts will affect about 12 per cent of Whitbread’s 30,000-strong workforce in the UK and Ireland working in its Beefeater and Brewers Fayre restaurants, which are usually located next to, or inside, Premier Inn hotels. The company said consultations with affected employees would begin immediately.

Whitbread said it expected to retain a “significant proportion” of staff affected and would try to find them alternative roles, given it hires about 15,000 people each year.

The country’s largest hotel operator had already started converting some of its underperforming Beefeater and Brewers Fayre restaurants into hotel rooms and now intends to continue the policy across the remaining 197 restaurants.

The move will involve Whitbread selling and leasing back £1.5bn of its freehold properties.

Dominic Paul, Whitbread’s chief executive, said: “We plan to convert all our remaining branded restaurants to an integrated food and beverage offer that is preferred by our hotel guests and will unlock the addition of more highly profitable extension rooms.

“Our continued efforts to drive our commercial plan and efficiencies will extend our market-leading position and allow us to take share from our competitors, many of which are struggling to grow.”

The Premier Inn in Abingdon (Image: Andy Ffrench)

Whitbread warned in late 2025 that Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ 2025 budget tax policies would cost it an extra £50m this year, amid changes to the way business rates are calculated. This followed an earlier cost squeeze from higher wage bills and rising food prices.

There are more than 800 Premier Inn hotels in the UK.

The Beefeater restaurant brand – established in 1974 and known for serving steaks and classic pub dishes – as well as the Brewers Fayre chain are now expected to disappear from UK high streets.

Diners in Abingdon were upset when the Ock Mill Beefeater restaurant attached to the former Premier Inn in Marcham Road closed in 2023. The building is now owned by The Unicorn School and is being converted into classrooms.

The job cuts warning came as Whitbread reported that its revenues for the year to February 26 were ‘flat’ compared with the same period a year earlier.

Earlier this month and last, there were widespread issues across the UK, including Oxfordshire, as drivers faced empty pumps at forecourts amid the conflict in the Middle East.

Prices also soared before eventually falling, triggered by the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and a temporary truce between the United States and Iran.

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Now, RAC head of policy Simon Williams has warned drivers that the price of petrol has become the most expensive since the conflict began.

“The sudden spike in the price of crude oil due to the latest tensions in the Middle East is likely to be a setback for drivers,” he said.

“While the price of unleaded at the pumps has fallen by more than a penny since peaking on 15 April at 158.31p, our analysis of wholesale costs shows petrol is now more expensive for retailers to buy than at any time since the war began.

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“However, diesel, which has come down by 3p a litre, is currently well below its highest wholesale price since the start of the conflict, so should fall further.

“The switch round in wholesale cost trends is partly due to the time of year, as the market for petrol tends to increase in the spring as people in the US begin to drive more, whereas the price of diesel often reduces as Western Europe’s use of heating oil, which is made from the same part of the barrel, lessens as the temperature warms up.”

This comes after reports that Tesco in Banbury was out of fuel at the end of last month, while others said there was no diesel at several other petrol stations in Oxfordshire.