Pubs push for St George's holiday

by Tony Halstead Scottish & Newcastle has backed the campaign launched by one of its licensees to make St George's Day a national holiday. The campaign also has the support of Bedford-based Charles Wells which has been pushed to give the day the same status as St David's Day in Wales and St Patrick's Day in Ireland. The campaign to get St George's Day recognised as a national holiday is being supported by licensee Tony Carr, who runs an S&N managed pub in the Wirral . His customers at the Irby Mill, Greasby, have signed a St George's Day petition which Carr hopes to hand in personally at 10 Downing Street. "In 10 days we have collected more than 700 signatures," said Carr, who concedes the runaway success of the campaign has taken him by surprise. S&N spokesman Tanya Wilson said: "We are increasingly finding that customers want to celebrate St George's Day and enjoy the atmosphere at their local pub. "Whilst we appreciate that the final decision is in the hands of the Government, Scottish & Newcas-tle Retail supports the call for making St George's Day a national holiday. Our European counterparts have more bank holidays than the UK, and we feel this would be a perfect opportunity to introduce an additional bank holiday." Charles Wells' public relations spokesman Sarah McGee said: "We feel the momentum is definitely growing which is also evident from the increased number of national listings which we are getting for Bombardier. "We fully support initiatives like this which are very much in the mould of our own backing for St George's Day. Charles Wells will again be mounting a high-profile activity on St George's Day and encouraging our own licensees and the pub companies we supply to get involved." A spokesman for the Depart-ment of Trade & Industry, which is in charge of national holidays, Said: "The Government has no plans to increase the number of bank holidays.