Third of Punch pubs 'churned' in three years

One in three Punch pubs changed hands in the past three years, according to a survey from the GMB union.

The GMB says the data shows tied tenants struggling to survive, and repeated its call for the beer tie to be broken up.

Of its 8,400 tenanted and leased pubs, 2,682 (31.9%) changed hands in the past three years.

Of that number, 396 (14.8%) did so because the lease came to an end.

Other reasons include tenants giving notice (911, or 34%), business failure (725, or 27%), tenants abandoning their lease (647, or 24.1%) or repossession due to debt (183, 6.8%).

Almost half of all pubs that changed hands — 1,260 — were run on a short-term tenancy.

Paul Kenny, GMB general secretary, said: "A lot of tied pubs no longer have regular tenants.

"This high level of churn is not unique to Punch and will be replicated in other pubco estates. The churn shows that the number of closures in the big pubcos are the very thin end of the uneconomic wedge in this sector and that the level of business failures is high because of unrealistic rents and wholesale beer prices charged by pubcos.

"The high number of short term tenancies shows that pubcos are finding it increasingly difficult to find long term tenants. The short term tenants are not willing to invest to stay in the business.

"Rents need to come down and wholesale prices need to be cut. GMB members who are tenants are asking the union to look at what action is needed to secure these changes."

Steve Corbett, a member of the anti-pubco Fair Pint campaign, accused pubcos of "hiding the damaging level of pub failures in their estates".

"These figures from GMB will be all too familiar to those inside the pub sector but hopefully they will come as a shock to MP's and business leaders."

Punch has yet to comment on the figures.