Mr Terry's comments came as he announced a ''value for money'' strategy at his steamboat restaurant alongside the River Dane.

In a radical move Mr Terry is abandoning his entire special events programme in favour of what he describes as "a new, single value for money approach.''

The initiative includes a Millennium menu on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday, which Mr Terry guarantees will cost £9.99 until the year 2000.

"There is no reduction in quality - this is not pub food,'' said Mr Terry.

"We're simply cutting only one thing - the price. People are always reading in the papers prices in Britain are a rip-off by comparison to Europe and the USA.

"Shortly this reaction is going to hit restaurants also. We are not making fortunes, but service providers will have to learn to live off leaner margins, improve efficiency and let the customer benefit.

"People are already saying there are too many restaurants opening and trying to exist in Congleton, so some sort of shake-out is bound to happen.

"As far as we're concerned if what we're doing kicks it off so much the better.''

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.