Pub closure numbers ‘alarming but not surprising’

Analysis from real estate adviser Altus Group showed 50 pubs a month are closing​ their doors.

It also revealed during the three months to 30 September 2022, 150 pubs were either demolished or converted into other types of properties.

This was up by half (50%) on the 200 pubs disappeared and lost for good during the six months of this year.

Pubs in the dark

The overall number of pubs, including those being offered to let and vacant, has dropped below 40,000 for the first time and is at 39,973 as of 30 June 2022 against 40,173 at the end of 2021.

Altus Group UK president Robert Hayton claimed last month’s mini Budget had “glaring omissions” and said “it beggars belief a self-proclaimed low tax Government could allow pubs to lose their business rates discount by next April as well as seeing any benefit from next year’s revaluation potentially wiped out by inflation”.

The British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) called for Government support in light of the statistics, particularly a reduction on business rates and VAT.

Chief executive Emma McClarkin said: “Pubs across the country are desperately trying to keep their doors open to serve their communities but have encountered hurdle after hurdle while trying to recover from the pandemic.

“Energy bills and other costs are still spiralling and publicans are mostly in the dark about whether they will be able to keep their lights on this winter as they await further detail and calculations on the business energy cap from [the] Government."

Deeply alarming

She added: “Meanwhile, customers are thinking very carefully about how and where they spend their money, meaning our pubs are squeezed at both ends.”

McClarkin said while the figures were deeply alarming, they were not surprising given how licensees were at a loss about how to keep their businesses going.

“We are urgently calling on the Government to ease the cost-of-doing-business crisis for our sector by introducing a cut to VAT and business rates before we lost even more pubs and the livelihoods they support in villages, towns and cities across the UK,” she added.