UK pub chain buys up hostel

UK pub chain JD Wetherspoon is looking to open a 100-room hotel and pub in the heart of Dublin city after it acquired Camden Hall Hostel on one of the city’s busiest night-time streets. Wetherspoon is looking for revised planning permission for the complex as part of a €4m development of the site which it says will create up to 75 jobs.

The dilapidated building on Camden Street houses a homeless hostel, a boxing gym and a garage all of which will remain in the building until work on the project commences.

The Peter McVerry Trust announced it planned to close the hostel in 2013 months after taking over the running of it at Dublin City Council’s request, in October 2012.