THE Campaign for Real Ale has welcomed the failure of Pubmaster's hostile bid for Wolverhampton and Dudley Breweries.

CAMRA has been campaigning to keep the country's largest regional brewery independent since last year.

"This is great news for beer drinkers in the Midlands and for the real ale industry as a whole," said head of campaigns and communications, Mike Benner.

"We look forward to working with the W&DB board to make sure competition, value and choice continue throughout the Midlands."

The battle for control of W&DB was finally settled on Monday, after predator Pubmaster, which runs 2,000 tenanted pubs across the country, lost by a narrow margin.

The improved £485m bid from the pubs group won the support of around 47 per cent of W&DB shareholders - three per cent short of the 50 per cent Pubmaster needed to declare its offer unconditional and take over the Midlands group.

Had Pubmaster succeeded, it would have sold W&DB's four breweries and turned the group into a pub operator with 1,500 outlets.

CAMRA has called for the Government to investigate the beer and pub industry, with a view to developing a strategy to maintain and promote competition and consumer choice.

"We may have won this battle but the war against consolidation is not over," said Mr Benner.

"We need the Government to step in and take action to prevent further take-overs and mergers from eroding this important British industry."