THE pub chain Wetherspoons looks set to open a second outlet in York - at the top of Micklegate.

The Evening Press can reveal that the independent pub retailer is on the verge of buying the Punchbowl pub on the corner of Micklegate and Nunnery Lane.

A spokesman confirmed rumours that Wetherspoons has agreed in principle to buy the pub.

He said that if the deal was completed, subject to planning and licensing, the pub would close for a major refurbishment and refit before reopening with all the usual Wetherspoons hallmarks - "no music, no entertainment, just drink and food".

There would also be non-smoking areas set aside and wheelchair access for customers.

The Punchbowl was not being bought because it was already a pub, but because it was in the right location, he added.

Another Wetherspoons pub is already set to open beneath the Travelodge hotel in Piccadilly this spring.

But the company's arrival in York comes after a period of frustration, with earlier attempts to gain a foothold failing to come to fruition.

Plans to open a bar near Ouse Bridge, now the site of the Casa bar, and at the Museum of Automata, in Tower Street, were both rejected.

Managing director John Hutson said last year that no national pub chain would be complete without a pub in York.

"We have been trying very hard to get into York; it is a very important market and one of the nation's major cities," he said, revealing that the company was looking for city centre sites for a second pub.

PC Dave Boag, from the York police licensing office, indicated he would "not have a problem" with Wetherspoons taking over the Punch Bowl, while stressing that it would have to "go through various hoops".

He said police had never objected to Wetherspoons as such: its opposition to the chain opening a pub by Ouse Bridge had been because it did not want yet another new pub in that area.

"The Punch Bowl has always been a public house," he said.

Updated: 10:22 Saturday, January 19, 2002