Greene King boss: 'We need to change the narrative'

The pubco boss added that he believes the narrative around pubs and the pandemic needs to change. 

Mackenzie said coming out of the first lockdown the attitude to pubs was positive, but over the past few months that had changed and the industry was now being used to get people to comply with the regulations: “I wouldn’t say we’ve been used, but it’s easy to use our industry for the narrative Government want to get out there.

"We need to get back to a positive narrative for our industry. Transmission wasn’t caused by pubs, we are regulated environments and we’ve spent millions and millions of pounds putting safety measures into pubs and we’ve done a really good job of it.”

He said it was important the Government started listening to the sector: “There’s frustration from industry around how things have happened and some of the regulations that have been put in place.

"Right at the start, the industry worked extremely well with the Government in setting up the regulations for coming out of the first lockdown and some of the stuff that’s happened since then hasn’t been as constructive.

"We want to get back to working with gov and not have situations where ill thought through regulations like the curfew come in place. People are bit wounded by what’s happened, but we’re resilient.”

For more on this story, watch the video above.