DRINKERS will get their first look inside Abingdon’s new JD Wetherspoon pub next month, with its smart new interior featuring some unusual red urinals.

The pub chain is to open The Narrows at the former Post Office, in High Street, when the town’s annual Michaelmas Fair is on.

Town councillors feared fairground rides and crowds in the street could restrict access, and possibly spoil the opening night.

But many local residents are looking forward to the £1.2m new addition to the town’s nightlife, to open on Tuesday, October 8.

The pub, to employ 40 people, has been named The Narrows, after the former name for that stretch of street from the old post office building to The Square, before it was destroyed by fire in 1883.

Tony Goulding, of the Campaign for Real Ale, said: “Going on the experience of other Wetherspoons, fears of it closing other pubs are nonsense.People on low budgets find it is cheap beer which matches their pockets.

“Then you have got a lot of people who will start their night there and then move on to another pub.

“A lot of people find them too busy to spend their whole night in.”

The fair, said to be Europe’s longest street fair, looks set to attract 30,000 visitors on Monday and Tuesday, October 7 and 8.

Town council leader Sandy Lovatt said: “We have done our best to advise them that access will be impossible that night. We are worried their event will be spoilt.”

Wetherspoon won permission to open the pub last year and can sell alcohol until midnight from Sunday to Wednesday and until 1am from Thursday until Saturday.