Whitbread, owner of Premier Inn, is to cut 1,500 jobs as it closes restaurants across the UK.

It plans to cut more than half of its branded restaurants, including Beefeater and Brewers Fayre, in favour of building more hotel rooms, as reported by the BBC.

The company plans to sell 126 restaurants and has already agreed sales on 21. It also plans to close a further 112 restaurants and convert the space into hotel rooms. The changes would add more than 3,500 new hotel rooms to the Premier Inn estate.

Premier Inns in Gloucestershire with a branded restaurant include Gloucester Quays and Cheltenham North West, which both have a Beefeater. It's not yet clear whether either of these will close.

Whitbread has just reported pre-tax profit of £452m for the year to February 29 - a rise of 21%.

This is despite the 126 restaurants it is selling making a loss of £9m and the 112 restaurants it plans to turn into hotel rooms making a total loss of £19m for the year.

Following the cuts, Whitbread will have 196 branded restaurants and 387 unbranded restaurants which are part of a hotel.

Whitbread has a total UK workforce of 37,000. The job cuts are subject to consultation.

The company said it would be supporting affecting staff and trying to find alternative roles for as many as possible.

Punchline-Gloucester.com said: "We've heard continually from the hospitality trade about how difficult it is to trade in these times, with increased costs from goods and increased costs of energy. Now the Government's policy of increasing the minimum wage will unfortunately see the end of many businesses.

"Restaurants will be trading with less people, so the service goes down as the cost of the goods they're selling goes up. Ultimately how much would you pay for your steak or your pizza? There comes a point where people either can't afford it or choose not to pay."