Pubs may try pergolas, gazebos or giant umbrellas for smokers

MPs voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to ban smoking from all pubs and private members' clubs in England.

Burton-on-Trent's Union Pub Company (UPC) owns 1,760 pubs, all run by self-employed managers.

UPC will test a range of ideas such as pergolas, gazebos, awnings or giant heated umbrellas.

The trials will begin within the next few months, to run throughout the spring and summer months.

The best ideas will be incoporated in the rest of UPC's estate of pubs.

Managing director Stephen Oliver thinks the smoking ban will spur managers to make pubs more attractive to new customers while accommodating smokers.

He told BBC News: "There's been so much confusion from government over the last few months that our licencees and myself didn't really know exactly what was going to happen.

"So although it's radical, I think it's the right decision for the industry as a whole, it's the right decision for employees and of course for customers in the long term."