More than one pub a month is closing in Shropshire because of tougher licensing laws and restrictions imposed by the Government, the Shropshire Star can reveal today.Experts said the rate of pubs opening in the county compared to those that are closing is the worst in the country.
The figures from CGA Strategy Ltd, a leading trade research and consultancy company, show a total of 17 pubs closed in Shropshire last year. During that time only three pubs were opened.
The data, covering a 12-month period between December 2006 to December 2007, paints a gloomy outlook for the county’s pub industry.
Landlords and pub trade leaders today blamed the Government - slamming the introduction of last year’s smoking ban, tougher licensing restrictions and increasing taxes on alcohol.
Eddie Main, former secretary of the Telford Licensed Victuallers’ Association, said: “We are now witnessing the death throes of a once-great British institution - the pub trade.
“After the recent budget’s extra 4p a pint on beer, it’s make your mind up time for licensees. And I fear there will be a mass exodus of licensees now.”
A senior analyst from CGA said: “On the face of it the picture looks relatively positive for Shropshire, in that closures are less than the national average.
“But openings are also down on the rest of Britain, and the net effect of closures and openings is worse than the rest of the country.”
The British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) said that across the UK almost 30 pubs a week are closing.
This figure has risen 14 times in the last 12 months, it claims.
A report by the association adds: “Within only a couple of years the only pubs left will be those operated by the faceless chains.”
Daniel Kawczynski, MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham, said: “I’m very disappointed with the Government’s lack of support.”
Dr Stuart Burgess, the Government’s Rural Advocate who is also chairman of the Commission for Rural Communities, said: “The pubs that are changing will survive.”
Now have your say:
- Is it all doom and gloom or can something be done to save Britain’s pubs?
- Will the country soon be left only to the big chains?
- What chance have independent landlords and breweries got?
- Are there any innovative ideas that have worked elsewhere that might save the day for Shropshire’s drinkers?
- Have your say in the comments box below.
40 Comments
even the landlords blame the smoking ban
Running your own pub these days doesn’t have quite the same draw as it used too, the companies that own the pubs are having to push rents and the price of the alchohol that tenants have to buy from up so dramatically that people that are interested in running the pubs are finding it hard to make a living from them.
Another sad story from Shrewsbury, the ‘Graveyard of Ambition’
The industry’s problems are mainly due to the big chains: they buy up successful privately owned pubs, tie in their tenants with restrictive deals and charge extortionate rents. And then they’re surprised when no one wants to be a landlord any more.
Beer is now overpriced, more expensive than petrol,overtaxed, now wonder the pubs are empty
Men need to find a new reason for going to the pub.
beer from supermarkets and extra tvs in the home have removed the old reasons.
what do you expect with a useless government like nu labour looney pc’s don’t do this don’t do that running the country,in the budget beer up again,why did’nt they hit the big supermarkets selling 24 cans for 16 quid,put 3 pound extra tax on that and bring the price of a pint by 20 pence,this spineless government will only listen to far left comments and sod us once we’ve been taxed to death then everything will close down in britain mark my words we’re to soft we put up with this rubbish day in day out,40% of our industry as gone to the wall,just look at telford now 60 people chasing after one job,70% of pubs will close in the next five years because our leisure money is being ripped out our hands in taxses.
The demise of the pub trade is a deliberate and planed act of sabotage. It is intended to ensure we all sedate and medicate ourselves in the privacy of our own homes. Raising a higher level of tax revenue without embarassing the Government by demonstrating a woefully inadequate police presence (a dig at inadequate funding, not a dig at our officers)or by our appearing in fly-on-the-wall documentaries showing our loutish behaviour.
You may drink as much as you want - bought cut price from the supermarket, sold in mega packs - just drink it at home… same for weed.. smoke what you like….it’s cheap and easily obtainable (far easier and quicker to get than getting a police officer to respond to a 999 request)… just do it at home….with the TV on, your beer, fags and sedatives….you won’t want to come out and notice there are no police around.
If your readers can’t see this is a simple cost cutting and revenue enhancing exercise… maybe they should cut back on the weed and venture out of their homes.
Well the Government and ASH say that the smoking ban is not affecting business, and there are 57 pubs closing every month, and their owners and landlords say it is because of the smoking ban, so who is right? I think it is pretty obvious who is right. What I want to know is, why are the Government and ASH in denial, and why is the National press and media ignoring it.
The pub trade has been dying long before the smoking ban! I agree with the extortionate rents that are being asked to be paid. As soon a pub is sucessful..the “Brewerys” put the rent up making it impossible to make a living. I’m a smoker and will admit it is nice to go into a smoke free pub but in saying that, for someone who went out every week, I don’t bother at all anymore. Who wants to stand outside in the cold and wet, i thought going out was supposed to be somewhere to socialise, enjoy a drink inside the pub not have everyone stand outside having to smoke and leave the pub empty..gr8 atmosphere eh..The pub trade anyway during the week time have to reply on pool, darts doms etc to make a living as it was tough enough but now they have to compete with winter wheather..i’d much rather stay in, buy take out and smoke in the comfort of my own home. You’ll also find that non smokers (some) are also fed with having to spend half thier night standing outside with their friends that smoke and also miss out on what the pub scene should be about, again, we’re all better off having a house party where everyone can be together and it’s far cheaper..I don’t see why a smokers room can not be re-introduced again or nominate certain pubs that you can smoke and pubs that you can’t, friends will follow each other smokers or not! and the brewerys .. don’t be greedy..wouldn’t you rather have busy and successful pubs and not pubs that are changing hands every five minutes…!!!!
im a smoker and havent been 2 pub scince the ban we meet at each others houses 4 a game of cards or dominoes an have a great time .dont miss or need u now thanks.
Well for a start the publicans should be writing to their M P and making them aware of the situation. This could be changed tomorrow if the smoking ban was amended to allow some sort of choice to allow smokers to access to pubs again. This government has produced this situation by barring thousands of smokers and then they wonder why so many people stay at home.Not rocket science.
Yes I do agree with AndrewM that some chains have behaved unscrupulously with regards to their recruitment of tenants however the biggest problem is undoubtably that pubs are no longer owned by the big breweries as they have been historically.
The appeal of quick sales through supermarkets with low overheads has seen all the main breweries sell their pub interests over the last twenty years or so. The result is that the pubs are now having to pay more for their product as the pub chains they buy from are themselves customers of the breweries and not the actual producers of alcohol. It is good business practice that you reduce the number of middle men between yourself and your supplier and as a result reduce your costs.
The only solution as I see it is for the government to acknowledge the problem and impose a substantial tax on alcohol sold through shops (but not licensed pubs) This would put pubs on a more level playing field with the supermarkets and possibly encourage the breweries to purchase back some of the failing pubs.
Another advantage that I see in this strategy would be to reduce the amount of alcohol freely available in the home. I’m sure we are all aware of the effects that easily available alcohol has had on underage binge drinking.
Unfortunately I can’t see the current Labour or any potential Tory governments making such proactive moves as both parties are in the pockets of the major breweries and supermarkets.
Unfortunately it looks to me as if the traditional English Pub is going to become a thing of the past!
A lot of sense being talked here - the smoking ban is major influencing factor in the down turn in trade –whether people like to admit it or not. The big chains that now influence the market care only about the bottom line and they can’t lose, as we are seeing locally when there are no takers for the empty pubs because of the restrions and high rents on the new tennats they sell the building and land on for redevelopment.
I don’t think that pubs were doing great business even before the introduction of the smoking ban. As an earlier writer said,the rents are ridiculously high. Pub landlords are being “ripped off” for the privelege of having satellite TV on their premises and,stupidly enough,they have to obtain a PRS certificate if they have a TV or just have a jukebox or background music playing. I believe this government is doing its best to try and kill the pub trade.
Perhaps “XPHSTO” should learn to read? The story mentions Shrewsbury once, and that is in the
title of “Mr Publicity, MP”. “XPHSTO” has also misunderstood exactly what the phrase
“graveyard of ambition” means.
The other quote from Shropshire is from the former chair of the Telford LVA.
Perhaps the pub trade is dropping off in Telford, but if “XPHSTO” is anything to go by,
I’d suggest that’s more to do with the denizens of Telford being unable to work out how to
operate the handles on the pub doors than the smoking ban.
greedy big chains , and tenants who enter it all with out sitting down and doing there homework properly
Pubs are closing because they cant make enough money selling alcohol. Meanwhile, try getting a meal on a Saturday afternoon in rural Shropshire. The few decent places that exist are packed. Perhaps a few more landlords need to think of adapting rather than just quiting.
Now that smokers are banned from spreading their foul odours inside these establishments, many more people are looking to use them to eat in. Last weekend two of us looked to have a meal, the first pub couldnt accomodate us, the 2nd was heaving with people queueing for its Carvery at £9/head. They were raking it in. Wake up Landlords, make the effort and put on some decent food.
I do worry that British Pubs are slowly becoming the equivalent of so-called “coffee shops” such as Costa and Cafe Nero. Charmless establishments serving insipid products due to the real champions of the genre being either priced out of the market, or being forced out due to ever more swingeing and restrictive regulations from this government.
Then, all we’ll be left with are pseudo-pubs with wacky warehouses attached that serve tasteless fizz or bland national-brand beer, and variations on a food theme centred around sizzling chicken wing combos and steak & chips for £4 a pop. Much in the same way that the national coffee chains purport to serve proper “coffee”, when - in reality - such chains probably have no idea that such delights as real Italian caffe lichio (think espresso with 10 times the kick), or caffe correto actually exist.
What I’m not concerned about is the local that my wife & I frequent closing. Maybe the main reason is that it is a proper “old fashioned” boozer that serves no food except quality crisps and scratchings, young kids are discouraged, and serves a huge range of quality real ales from all over the country. It’s a shame that such establishments are now the exception rather than the rule….
Taxed and regulated out of excistance. You will not smoke or drink so the socialist utopia of NuLabour will arrive.
Britain’s pub culture is dying and there are many reasons:
Smoking ban
Cost
Family life
Culture
Everything changes over time and this is just one of them! my Grand Parents and Parents social life surrounded the local Pubs but mine does not nor many others! Pubs are very much a British institution not relected elsewhere.
The smoking ban was introduced to protect the public AND pub workers from passive smoking. So no, setting aside a ’smoking room’ will not happen for that reason.
I agree that publicans need to provide better quality food not the usual disgusting ‘pub grub’. As non-smokers are more discerning than your average smoker, that is what we would like to see happen, and that is what will attract the punters.
david
restaurants are for eating in and pubs are for drinking in, why don’t you stick to the restaurants so we can have our pubs back.
Beer tax up,cig tax up, petrol tax up, when will the people of this country wake up and realise what this wasteful and greedy government is doing to our way of life .
Chris P Bacon is I would suggest the one that needs to ‘learn to read’. And when he has done so I further suggest that he reads the torrent of very valid concerns that this story has attracted about the sad and rapid demise of the Shropshire pub trade, Shrewsbury being only one of it’s victims.
Yes Chris P Bacon I do know the meaning of the phrase ‘graveyard of ambition’ and believe me good companies like for example Whetherspoons know as well
Before Chris P bacon submitted what can only be considered a disjointed comment he should have looked at the broader picture of wholesale trade destruction at the hands of the this non starter government.
spencer
The article is about the fact pubs are struggling. How would ‘us’ people stopping using them to eat help them to survive? What do you mean by letting ‘you’ have your pubs back?? Are you saying you are no longer going for a drink because people are eating there???
Or are you just a bitter smoker still blindly refusing to accept that the time when you could go round damaging everyone else’s health is now over?
I used to work for the biggest brewer in the UK in the 1990’s looking after about 80 free trade pubs and clubs in Shropshire. The Beer Orders forced brewers to sell most the pubs they owned because a few microbrewers and CAMRA were concerned about small producers of real ale not getting their products in pubs owned by breweries.
The solution was for the brewers to sell to pub groups that grew very quickly. These groups were really property portfolio investments by foreign banks. They are interested in growing the value of their estate, not beer sales, like the brewers who had plied their trade over the past 200 years without too much interference from govt.
The people who benefited most from these beer orders were the leaseholders of the pubs that brewers had to sell to comply with the laws. The brewers often discounted the price of the pub AND lent the lessee the money to buy the pub from them at low rates of interest in return for a supply deal, as the pub was effectively free of tie, or a Free House.
Around this time property prices rose quickly. Many successful lessees sold the pubs on to chains in a short space of time, some earning what I can only describe as a lottery style wins. Pub groups were sitting on huge asset bases. Many estate and local pubs with less successful operators were providing nowhere near the returns that the more successful outlets provided. These would have been effectively subsidised by the brewery because they were still selling beer. No use to the pub groups.
The less successful outlets were sold in tranches to smaller and smaller groups until they become the ones you now see boarded up.
This is a real lesson in being careful what you ask for, and govt. getting the way of ‘free trade’.
That said, there is no reason that someone with a bit of enthusiasm and drive can’t get a pub going and develop the business in the current climate. It’s happened at my local, and its called survival of the fittest.
I really enjoyed my time in the industry, met some fantastic people, shrewed operators and people who were simply in the right place at the right time but would I ever own a pub? No.
Frankie,
Do you have any proof of your statement that “non-smokers are more discerning than smokers”? Or is that just anecdotal guff and personal opinion? If the latter is true, then a more sweeping generalisation I do not think I have ever read.
Maybe one could state that ale drinkers are more discerning than lager drinkers. Or diners choosing to eat lamb are more discerning than those that eat beef.
spindrift
Surely the fact that smokers have congregated in dingy smelly pubs with nicotine coloured ceilings for the last Century is proof enough that they are less ‘discerning’ than the non-smokers, who have until now avoided these places because of the poor environment.
Next you will be asking for proof that passive smoking is damaging to the health. The proof is there, some smokers just refuse to see it.
Andy, Probably the most sensible comments I’ve read in the entire thread. The pub trade was in decline long before the smoking ban. I can remember when I worked in a pub in the early ’80s, at the height of Margaret Thatcher’s assault on the working people of this country, we watched customer numbers dwindle, people coming in later and later in the evenings. Part of it is cost of beer, part of it is a change of lifestyle with people becoming more concerned with their health - at the unnecessary sacrifice of missing out on a good pint sometimes.
Spindrift - I’m not sure whther the term ‘discerning’ is the right one. However, it’s inevitable that heavy smokers will be less able to enjoy the subtleties of a good pint as their habit will have compromised their sense of taste and smell. As for ale drinkers being more discerning than lager drinkers, there are some very fine lagers available - mostly imported, but the sort of stuff typically produced in Britain often ‘under licence’ is usually very poor - at best it’s consistently mediocre.
Real ale, on the other hand, is rarely mediocre - if badly kept or prepared, it can be absolutley terrible but if properly looked after it will provide subtleties of flavour that typical ‘keg’ lagers couldn’t approach.
Pubs need to change with the times. The days of the ’spit and sawdust’ four-ale bar are probably numbered. The key now to a successful pub seems to be the quality of beer and other produce available. People will pay premium prices for good food and drink - but they’re unlikely to be enthused by corporate portion-control and homogenous chains of pubs.
Davis said “Next you will be asking for proof that passive smoking is damaging to the health. The proof is there, some smokers just refuse to see it”.
Name three please
Three proofs?
Most people only need one, it was certainly more than enough for Roy Castle.
Why dont you be honest timbone, 3 million proofs wouldnt be enough. The truth is too hard for you so you just bury your head in the sand.
Happily, the smoking ban has now been actioned because of the overwhelming evidence. So its not down to me to give you 3 proofs. If you want the ban lifted all you need to do is supply one proof that smoking isnt harmful to us. I wont hold my breath !
David. OK. So let’s assume that non-smokers are more discerning than smokers. In what manner? Choice of cars? Choice of restaurant visited? Choice of home purchased? Choice of charity donated to?
Peter, you miss my point somewhat. My example of the difference between lager and real ale was a little arbitrary. My wife & I are regulars at a pub that never has less than seven real ales available. At the same time, it also serves Budweiser Budvar, Budvar Black, Amstel, and until recently, the little-known Artois Bock. Not to mention the range of continental lagers stocked. It’s all good stuff, relected in the number of customers every weekend.
It’s just a shame that most pub-goers these days - seemingly - are content with a pint of Carling and cheap steak and chips.
is there any proof to suggest that fewer non smoker have been diagnosed with smoking related illnesses since the no smoking ban came into effect,
Also should we ban people from eating in pubs because of the threat of obesity…
Totally agree with Andy and Peter the traditional pub trade is dying and somewhere along the road it will stabilize but at a fraction of what it was! the smoking debate will go on forever! I am an ex smoker and do believe the ban is the right way to go although I do get a bit fed up of listening to the frenzy anti smokers brigade.
David, for every piece of epidimialogical evidence concerning SHS, there are six pieces of proper scientific research which show that it cannot cause serious illness in non smokers. With the greatest respect to Roy Castle, who self diagnosed the cause of his tragic illness, he was a social cigar smoker, and there are thousands of musicians who have performed in smoky clubs far more than he did - here are a few you may have heard of who are still going strong - Kenny Ball, Acker Bilk, Chris Barber, Humphrey Littleton, Eric Delaney, Cleo Lane. It is true that active smokers risk lung cancer, 2 in 100,000, but who says the 15% who are non smokers get it from SHS? There are other well known causes, like asbestos, radon, and heavy polution from vehicle exhaust, which is 100 times more toxic than environmental tobacco smoke. I respect the wishes of the non smoker, all I want is separate, well ventilated smoking rooms, and small pubs to be able to choose whether to be smoking or non smoking. Those in power just don’t like the smell, but you can’t base a law on that, so this global obsession is based on junk science.
As I suspected, head totally buried in the sand refusing to accept the scientific fact. You dont like the reality so you call it ‘junk science’ but I notice you havent managed to give any proof that passive smoking isnt harmful. Just because someone hasnt died yet doesnt prove anything.
“[we] managed to ban smoking from enclosed public places while believing that the weight of evidence on passive smoking was “insubstantial”. That is a recent comment from Professor Julian Le Grand, Government advisor from ‘Health England’. “The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality, although they do not rule out a small effect”. Part of the conclusion from possibly the largest most extensive study ever done by Enstrom and Kabat. “HSE cannot produce epidemiological evidence to link levels of exposure to second hand smoke to the raised risk of contacting specific diseases”. The conclusion of the Health and Safety Executive study presented to the Government prior to the ban. Professor Sir Richard Doll was the first scientist to publish research linking (primary) smoking with lung cancer. However, three years ago, Prof. Doll stated: “The effect of other people smoking in my presence is so small it doesn’t worry me.” There are many more. My head is not in the sand David, and I present my argument without personal insult. I was genuinly concerned about the passive smoking propaganda, and have an open mind willing to accept substantiated evidence, which is why I spent several months looking at research by various establishments.
And yet STILL you can give no proof ! only comments and opinions.
Lose pub life,lose life.where can people meet 2 talk openly?plan strikes and revolutions?