Over one in four pubs lost over the last decade Changing habits, new rules and Covid blamed for decline
“THERE’S never been a harder time to run a pub, even before Covid. You put Covid on top and it’s frankly ridiculous.”
Thom Hetherington is the chief executive of Northern Restaurant and Bar, the biggest hospitality exhibition in the north of England.
Speaking to host Annie Gouk in the latest episode of The North in Numbers, he added: “It’s a very, very competitive market and pubs are having to be very smart and work very hard to survive. It’s a pretty crushing time for the industry I think.”
The North in Numbers podcast tells the human stories behind the various statistics for the north of England.
Pubs and bars across the north have faced decades of decline.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that in the last 10 years alone, the region has lost one in every nine of its pubs and bars, with the number falling from more than 11,100 in 2010, to around 9,900 in 2020.
That drop has been even steeper at a local level – with some areas such as Rochdale and Oldham losing more than one in every four pubs and bars over the last decade.
Most people agree that the decline is at least partly due to changes in regulation, with moves such as the smoking ban and the crackdown on drink driving undoubtedly having an impact on the industry.
However, a big part of it is also to do with major changes in the ways we drink and socialise – with it now often being cheaper to drink at home, and consumer tastes more eclectic.
Tom Mcneeny comes from a family of publicans, and has been working in the industry since the age of 14. He’s currently a manager at the Lancashire Hospitality Co, who own several pubs in and around Rochdale.
He said: “The places that close, each one of them has a story, each one of them has a landlord and a community built around it.
“The sadness in Rochdale is seeing the places that you knew go, and it puts a face to it.
“It’s the march of progress, it’s time and it’s change and it’s inevitable, but you still miss the places that are gone.”
It’s not all doom and gloom, however.
The pandemic has also led to a surge in pubs and bars stepping up to help out their communities – from fundraising to food bank collections.
Mr Hetherington said: “Bars and pubs have really been at the forefront in this crisis of putting their hand up and trying to help, and you’ve seen that from day one.
“And the thing that I find becoming unbelievable and really heartening is that this has continued, even over nine months of grinding, crushing unfairness and difficulty for bars and pubs.
“However many times they get kicked, they just keep putting their hand up and going ‘we’ll do that’.
“I think it’s a really nice story that has come out of this that if anything it’s reconnected bars and pubs to their communities, because they have helped.”
The North in Numbers is a Laudable production. You can find it on all major podcast platforms.