PUB and brewing group Marston’s said it expected to open four to five outlets a year in Scotland as it reported a 12 per cent rise in half year underlying profits to £33 million on revenues up 11.5 per cent to £429m.

“We think we’ve got an offer in family pub dining that works very well,” said chief executive Ralph Findlay. “It’s a modern take on pubs and we think that the offer we’ve got is relatively under-represented in the Scottish market. So we will continue to buy sites in Scotland. We’re building a land bank at the moment for future development and would expect us to be doing four to five openings a year in the Scottish market.”

Edinburgh-born Mr Findlay said the Wolverhampton-based business, which has 1,600 pubs and 13,500 staff across the UK, had opened 12 pub-restaurants and four lodges – 30 to 40-bed inns – in Scotland since first venturing north of the border three years ago. The existing lodges are in Dunbar in East Lothian, Balloch at Loch Lomond, Stevenston in Ayrshire and Dunfermline in Fife.

“By this summer, we'll have five lodges in Scotland, because we are now on site in Stirling,” Mr Findlay added. “That means we will have created 600 jobs in Scotland in the last three years.”

Plans for the year ahead include the opening of a new ‘premium’ bar in Edinburgh’s west end, due to open in the summer. A 13th pub-restaurant is also planned for an undisclosed Scottish location in the second half of the year. This will create another 40 to 50 jobs.

Mr Findlay said all Marston’s outlets in Scotland so far had been new-build. Its favoured locations are “places with lots of traffic”, including housing developments and the edge of retail parks.

“For example one of the [pub-restaurants] we’ve opened this year is Ravenscraig, where there’s a huge amount of housing development going on,” Mr Findlay said.

The company has five breweries and sells cask and bottled ales including Marston's Pedigree and Hobgoblin through its managed outlets in Scotland and the off-trade, including the major supermarket chains.

“The Scottish market, like the UK market, is well developed in beer,” Mr Findlay said. “There’s more interest in craft beer and regional beer. That’s our kind of market, so our share is steadily increasing and our beer business is performing very well to date.”