One pub closed for good every two weeks

FIGURES REVEAL ‘HUGE HUGE BLOW FOR SECTOR ‘

ONE pub closed every two weeks last year in the North East, new figures have shown, amid concerns the trend could continue for some time.

The British Beer and Pub Association has published the statistics showing how 54 pubs closed their doors for good across the region in 2022 and 2023, triggering around 650 job losses.

The organisation said the numbers follow a trend which will have a major impact on the pubs’ communities, especially in rural areas affected by closures, where job opportunities are lacking.

Across the wider UK there were 500 pub closures in 2023, at a time when the hospitality industry, which operates on narrow margins, is battling to navigate a number of challenges including rocketing energy costs, higher labour costs, rising prices of raw materials, and a heavy tax burden.

Chief executive of the British Beer and Pub Association, Emma Mcclarkin outlined the sector’s huge contribution, pouring £26.2bn in to the UK economy while generating £15.1bn in tax revenue. She called upon the Government to make changes to the business tax system to aid the industry, which supports 936,000 jobs from farmers growing barley and hops, to the brewers, pub landlords and their staff.

She said: “The closure of 54 pubs over the past two years is a huge blow for the sector, the North East and for the many local communities where a pub is one of the few remaining public spaces and an important cultural and community asset.

“The rate of decline is significant with the loss of a quarter of pubs across the country since 2003.

“There is still time for the local councils and Government to reconsider the level of business rate relief they provide that will best support local businesses. We need to set a path for the longterm sustainability for the beer and pub sector, otherwise it will be too late for many of our muchloved pubs and the central role they provide supporting local high streets and the broader local economy.”

The closure figures have emerged as the owner of The Punchbowl Hotel in Jesmond, Newcastle, has become the latest on Tyneside to announce he is calling time at the venue.

Dave Carr’s firm Frank & Bird was behind a grand restoration of the empty pub before re-opening it five years ago, as a sister venue to Gosforth pub The Brandling Villa.

He announced on social media how he had decided not to extend the tenancy, saying: “As much as we love it here, £10,000 a month utility bills, Covid repayments and rampant inflation has left us a little bruised and a little lacking in energy that another five years asks for.”

Mr Carr said creativity within the leisure trade is in danger of being stifled by the cost controls that operators are having to stick to, in some instances just to survive.

He said: “I would have stayed on at the Punchbowl but we had a £100,000 increase in utilities, so that wiped out everything we had left for that year. We’re now back in a situation where we can make some profit, but what’s the motivation for me to do another five years?

“One of the things that doesn’t get talked about it is how the conditions right now are bad for people like me, who want to push the envelope a bit. Yes, there’s business constraints and it’s hard and so on and so forth, but the thing that’s bad for us is the way that controls public trends. People are going for safety first and less risk, moving back into this realm of high margins, like pizza and prosecco. But I want to sell, for example, cookie vermouth.

“All of the oddball stuff that I used to do as a passion – food festivals and folky gigs that wouldn’t make a lot of money – they are all going by the wayside because you need the ones that will get bums on seats. That’s the way things are heading and it’s a bit depressing for us. It was never really about the money for a lot of us guys, we did it because it was exciting. Now we’re in a situation where it’s not exciting and there’s no money in it, so how long can it be sustained?”

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