Tue 22nd May 2018 - Brunning & Price buys Ribble Valley Inns Brunning & Price buys Ribble Valley Inns: Brunning & Price, the Restaurant Group’s gastro-pub arm, has bought Ribble Valley Inns, the food-led pub brand of Northcote Leisure Group. The deal consists of The Highwayman, Kirkby Lonsdale; The Clog & Billycock, Blackburn; The Three Fishes, Mitton; and The Bull in Broughton. The fifth Ribble Valley Inns pub, the Nag’s Head in Tarporley, did not form part of the deal and is to be sold separately. Brunning & Price managing director Mary Willcock said: “We have admired Ribble Valley Inns for many years and believe that these well-known and long-established businesses are perfectly positioned geographically for us to enhance our presence in the north of England. As always, we feel that a pub should retain its own personal character and look forward to working with the teams locally to ensure they prosper and thrive in the coming months and years." Brunning & Price, which operates 62 sites, has already added a former Greene King-operated Loch Fyne restaurant in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, and Arrow Mill in Alcester, Warwickshire – its first site with rooms – to its estate this year, with both sites reopening this autumn. Brunning & Price has also lodged plans to turn the listed 17th century farmhouse Tidbury Green Farm in Earlswood, near Solihull, into a pub restaurant. Earlier this year, the company outlined its requirements for further sites as it continues its expansion. It is looking for locations between Lancashire and Kent in rural and semi-rural locations that have plots of at least 1.25 acres, or urban sites with the ability to create a bar restaurant seating at least 120 people. The Restaurant Group acquired Brunning & Price for £32m in 2007.