A NEW restaurant will create around 50 jobs in Winchester from next month.

Managers have launched a recruitment drive to fill the full and part-time positions that will be created with the arrival of Loch Fyne Restaurants.

The company has acquired the listed Tudor building in Jewry Street, formerly the Elizabethan restaurant.

The vacancies are a welcome boost for the city after the announcement last week that the jobs of 55 workers at the Millflex cable-making factory in Winnall Manor Road were at risk after the firm called in the receivers.

Bosses blamed the strength of the pound, increased competition and failed merger negotiations for the decision. They admitted that limited redundancies were "likely".

Recent bad weather has hampered work to restore the site, but restaurant bosses are confident the planned November opening will go ahead as planned.

The company has ploughed £750,000 into the project, part of a three million-pound investment to open 20 restaurants throughout the country. It will specialise in fresh fish and oysters direct from the company's Scottish fisheries on the banks of Loch Fyne in Argyll.

Although upmarket, Winchester is seen as a prime location, the company has stressed a visit to the new 150-seat restaurant need not lead to credit card meltdown.

"We take food very seriously because that is what we are about," said director Ian Glynn.

"The idea is that you can come in and have just one course or go for a great big blow out."

And customers will be able to buy fresh fish to take home from a restaurant shop.