A company which has several pubs across the district has revealed that trading has remained tough at premises where it has banned smoking.

The group, which already operates 49 of its 650 pubs as non-smoking outlets, said a negative sales trend seen at these pubs in the first quarter of its financial year had continued in the subsequent 11 weeks. This led to a "considerable" drop in operating margins at the pubs and left the group cautious about the potential effects of the smoking ban due to be introduced in Scotland in March.

It said: "Combined with the potential impact of the football World Cup in June and July 2006, this leads us to take a cautious view of the possible outcome for the second half of the current financial year."

It overshadowed news that like-for-like sales - stripping out pub openings and closures - rose 0.3 per cent in the 11 weeks to January 8.