He never thought it would come to this. After 30 years, Richard Sewell is
packing in the pub trade.
For the past five years he has been the licensee at the Park Inn pub in
Hartlepool. This week he is handing the keys over and letting somebody else
have a go.
“I was going to run this place for a few years, sell the lease and retire,” he
said. “But it’s gone completely the wrong way. I’ll be lucky to get out
without having gone bankrupt.”
A combination of cheap beer in supermarkets, rising costs and alcohol duty and
fewer customers because of the smoking ban have taken their toll on
thousands of British pubs.
The British Beer & Pub Association estimates that four are shutting down
every day and that the rate of closures is 14 times faster than in 2005.
There are just over 57,000 pubs in Britain today, compared with 69,000 in
1980.
The village pub is vanishing, hit by increasingly tough drink-driving laws;
beer sales have not been so low since the depression of the 1930s. Many
publicans, like Sewell, have become so demoralised they are calling time.
Andrew King, who runs the King’s Arms in Ely, Cambridgeshire, returned to the
pub trade after 22 years in the army. He wishes he had not bothered. “It’s
extremely difficult,” he said.
King’s lease has been up for sale since the turn of the year, and there has
been scant interest from prospective buyers.
Chris Unwin, who owns four pubs in and around Plymouth, had to inject £250,000
into the business to keep it going after last summer’s bad weather and
rising costs. He said that the rates at one of his outlets had shot up from
£13,000 to £21,000 in a year.
“The whole industry is going to implode,” he added. “Behind the monarchy, the
pub is one of the great things in this country. If you lose that, you lose
everything.”
Most people in the business blame the government, which, they argue, has done
nothing for the pub industry. The chancellor’s recent decision to raise duty
on beer by 4p is the final insult. British beer is already the highest taxed
in Europe.
This is one reason why pub-goers have stopped going out two nights a week,
according to Ian Payne, chairman of Laurel, the managed-pub group behind the
Yates and Slug & Lettuce chains. Friday night down the pub is no more;
instead it’s Friday night down the supermarket for cheap lager (58p a pint
instead of £2.85) and fags, and then back home to the telly.
Payne said: “The industry has lost a night and it tends to be Friday. People
still want to go out one evening a week, but they have chosen another night
to stay at home, drink lager from the supermarket and smoke.”
The licensees’ real wrath, however, is reserved for the companies, such as
Enterprise Inns and Punch Taverns, that own the freeholds to their pubs.
There is even an attack website, Punchsucks.co.uk.
These businesses charge tenants a rent and sign them up to beer-supply
contracts. Tenants say rivals not tied to one of the pub companies can buy
beer cheaply and charge drinkers less. The tenanted pub, it is claimed, is
forced to charge higher prices to meet the bigger cost. This creates a
vicious circle: as trade deteriorates, money for improvements becomes scarce.
Jerry Hudson, who runs The Farmhouse pub in Horley, Surrey, said: “[The
tenanted pub groups] don’t pass on the discount they get with their buying
power to the tenants.” Another licensee said: “They want their pound of
flesh.”
The tenanted-pub companies grew up following the Beer Orders, the ruling in
1989 aimed at ending the control of pubs by the big brewers.
Companies such as Enterprise and Punch, snapped up the vast pub estates while
the derestricted market led to the creation of new businesses such as JD
Wetherspoon. OVER the past decade and a half, the “pubcos” have become the
country’s biggest landlords. They have enjoyed the benefits of the rising
property market, with pub valuations climbing. This has enabled them to
raise huge amounts of money on the debt markets, giving them the fire-power
to invest in acquisitions.
They have also trimmed their estates to offload “bottom-end” pubs they saw as
unviable, which have been snapped up by other investors looking to create
their own pub empires.
The tenanted-pub groups’ dominance has given them a powerful position, but in
recent months pub companies of all stripes have faced tough market
conditions. This is the first time these companies have traded through a
heavy consumer downturn.
Even the behemoths are not immune. Enterprise Inns’ annual profits, published
in November, were 4% down on the previous year.
This Thursday, Punch will deliver its interim figures, which are likely to be
unshowy at best. Analysts at Dresdner Kleinwort predict a 5% fall in pretax
profits but think the numbers will be “solid”.
Mark Brumby, leisure analyst at Oriel Securities, said: “These companies have
been used to doing business in a buoyant economy, with benign interest rates
and a buoyant property market. All of that has gone. They are having to deal
with a brave new world.”
Pub owners say the onus is on tenants to rise to the challenge. Ted Tuppen,
chief executive of Enterprise Inns, said: “The pub industry is experiencing
greater pressure than in the past. What this means is that pubs have to be
even better to continue to perform well.”
Both Enterprise and Punch deny being unsympathetic to their tenants’ plight.
Tuppen said: “We are working harder than ever to support licensees who are
working hard to help themselves.”
He said the company invested about £70m on capital expenditure on pubs last
year and would do so again in 2008.
For disillusioned landlords, this is cold comfort. King said: “I don’t think
the pub company is being sympathetic. All they’re interested in is getting
their hands on the money.”
For a publican, “working harder” usually means serving food. “You’ve got to be
doing food now, or you’re dead,” said Payne.
Pubs now account for about 23% of all meals served outside the home. Pub
operator Mitchells & Butlers serves 107m per year. At a trading update
this month, comparable sales were up just 0.6% but food sales were ahead
4.8%.
At Punch’s Spirit division, like-for-like sales were down 2.2%, according to a
January update, but would have been worse but for food sales improving 1%.
Marston’s said its food sales were up 7.8% for the 24 weeks to March 15.
Some executives argue, however, that food is not the answer for everybody.
Many pubs, they point out, are ill-equipped or too small to offer better
food, even if the landlords wanted to do more.
This is particularly true in the countryside, where the Campaign for Real Ale
is trying to ensure that the pub does not go the same way as the village
post office. Pub Is The Hub, set up with backing from Prince Charles, also
tries to help communities save their pubs.
Success stories include The Black Swan in Ravenstonedale, Cumbria, which gave
over space to open a shop selling local produce, and the Blacksmiths Arms in
Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, which began doing the catering for five local
primary schools.
Many others have been sold for their property value. The village of Speldhurst
near Tunbridge Wells in Kent used to have two lively pubs.
Now one is a private home, and the other is a restaurant with bars, owned by a
chain. There are few winners in this pub war. While the noisy high street
bars can fall back on their binge-drinkers, in the quieter backwaters, a
national institution is vanishing, and the pub companies’ business model
seems unable to save it.
PUB QUIZ: TEST YOURSELF
What is the most common name for a pub in Britain?
The Red Lion. (The Royal Oak is the second most common.)
How many pubs are there in the UK?
About 57,000
What percentage of beer is bought in pubs?
Roughly 50%. It was as much as 95% 30 years ago.
Who first made pubs put signs up, indicating their status as alehouses?
Richard II in 1393
What is the oldest pub in Britain?
This is the subject of some debate, but claimants to the title include Ye Olde
Trip to Jerusalem, in Nottingham, and Ye Old Fighting Cocks in St Albans.
How many people drink in pubs?
About 15m people visit a pub at least once a week.
Which is Britain’s biggest pub company?
Punch Taverns. It has more than 8,400 outlets. Enterprise Inns is the second
largest with 7,800.
How much did the chancellor add in duty to the price of beer his most
recent budget?
4p per pint.
And of landlords surveyed by the trade magazine Morning Advertiser, how
many support a ban on the chancellor entering any British pub?
80%.
Pubs are crap - all who enter them should be immediately tasered and issued an ASBO. Only thus can Britain be properly socialised.
Ayar Thirtyfive, London, UK
The closing of pubs is great news. They have fostered an image of being a social gathering place. They by so doing have produced generations of drunks and ruined millions of families. Alcohol is addictive and all our lives would be better without it. The closing of breweries, hopefully, will follow.
Jim Wills, Brisbane , Australia
We inherited these pubs from our ancestors. This generation has squaundered them. The smoking ban has destroyed them.I do not see too many virulent anti -smokers supporting my pub. Are they just control freaks? Another reduction in permissable alcohol levels for driving will be the end of the pub.
barry mildren, bristol, uk
When I moved to England from France a few years ago, I was very intrigued by pubs, and, at first, found them quite exciting. Now I have come to hate them, and can't wait for them all to shut down. My partner enjoys going to a pub nearby, and it has caused me so much distress and disruption at home.
Fabienne Camus, London,
It's a crying shame,all the pubs closing.Sounds like bad management & monopoly to me.Small breweries taken over by huge breweries selling bland watery beer CAMRA has been fighting it for 30years but it s a loosing battle,Still people dont know what they have lost until its gone,& it seems to be going very quickly unfortunately.
11 years in the trade 1950 to 1961 seems like they were the good old days when you got REAL ALE from the local brewery
C Smith, Burlington, Ontario Canada
Publicans are hypocrites to compain about booze duty increases - they love them! They always increase the price of a drink by about twice that levied in the budget! I gave up going to the pub regularly because I got fed up with being ripped off by ever increasing pub prices.
Chris, Birmingham,
Its not just the prices & no-smoking that is emptying the pubs 'its the managements hostile attitude to the customers ; CCTV listening to intimate details of everyones conversation & the threatening manner of the local mafia / bouncers. I live in the centre of a provincial town which is controlled by the pub trade .Its 0400hrs& noisy drunken people are still walking past my house. This has been going on since midnight & most nights of the week. Needless to say I haven't been in a British pub since October & I won't be ever again if I have my way. Police stations are more friendly than most pubs these days. people must learn to accept that punters are there to be controlled & milked in the UK.. Make town centres pub free zones & let the supermarkets open their own bars clubs ,that way you would get polite staff & fair prices in retail park venues where people can make as much noise as they they like 24/7.
HARRY, IPSWICH,
I never went to pubs much but I know why friends did. The public smoking ban was an erroneously smug measure which means those (blokes?) who used to go to the pub to meet their mates for a pint would rather smoke in the comfort of their own home. Death knell for pubs. And who suffers? The youngest who can't argue - their parents by default smoke around them now. And those who always avoided pubs but quite liked 'sitting outside places' - whether Starbucks or some brasserie - are now choked by smoke from fag-ash-Lil & co hogging all the tables and we all sit ankle deep in filth from ash and fag butts. Really, this is the reality. Nobody wins.
Carolyn, Bath, England
If I had been the President Elect of a major supermarket 27 years ago, would have lobbied for a total ban on smoking. By the way, do supermarkets sell tobacco? Think they have achieved most of there objectives. Where is this gutless, spineless government going to take us next.? No breathing!!!!!
Garry Crush, hadano, Japan
If pubs insist on charging around £22. a gallon for beer then how can they complain when people go elsewhere. Holidaying in Hampshire I was shocked at the price of a pint of San Miguel which @ £3.20 is £25.60 a gallon. and they say petrol is expensive. A gallon of petrol will take 4 people 30+ miles a gallon of lager however will take you no further than the gents. Add to this, waiting until the bar person has finished conversing with A.N.Other, served 3 locals who came in after you, before serving you. If you go to table it is more than likely that it will have snack papers and dirty glasses on it, sit down but do not attempt to converse with your fellow drinkers decause you wont be heard above thin din caused by the juke box vying to be heard over the din of the TV. Do not ask "Why do people drink at home ask why some people still visit pubs"
Deryk A Jones, Wirral,
There are not only market forces, the smoking ban, or the increases in duty, that will be responsible for pub closures. The concept of "passive drinking", similar to "passive smoking", will highlight the damage caused to society by domestic and street violence, road injuries and deaths, and child abuse. It will also stress the economic costs of policing, emergency services, and medical care. As reported in New Scientist, the World Health Organization is developing a plan, due in draft form in 2010, aimed at inducing guilt in the would-be drinker, focussing not on the personal effects, but on the collateral effects, of alcohol consumption. In a similar vein, the medical officers of the EU's DG SANCO are finishing a report emphasizing "third party damage" and containing a set of proposals that would include the "guilt campaign" remedy. In a few years time, it may be socially unacceptable to be seen entering a pub.
Dwight Vandryver, Scholar Green, Cheshire, UK
If the closing of my local is anything to go by, then the smoking ban is responsible for many closures.
I haven't been out since it was introduced. Despite being able to drink better beer at home for less cost, I would rather go out & socialise but not when I have to obey the diktats of the Nanny State.
Mike, Whitehaven,
Publicans have for years been finding excuses for their diminishing trade; 80% of pubs are nasty places with poor customer service - I have to stand for 10 minutes to be told that what I want is "off", staff are surley, drinks overpriced and if there's any food it's heated up processed meals.
Alan, Harrogate, N. Yorks
"When you have lost your Inns, then you should drown yourselves, for you have lost the best of England."
Hillaire Belloc
Ernesto Forchetto, Gijon, Spain
Thank goodness!
One of the worst things about Britain is this obsession with Pubs. They are awful places mostly. Let's see them replaced with better run businesses serving food and drink, where families can enjoy themselves. Other countries have villages and towns with social lives which manage very well without a pub. Britain seems obsessed to cling on to traditions just for the sake of clinging on to them. Did people stop using trains because there was a smoking ban, or planes for that matter? Pubs are traditionally the most uncomfortable, poorly run rip off catering establishments possible and it is high time they retired.
ian, London, UK
Market forces do not exist in the UK.
The smoking ban wasnt "market forces" it was market interference, and thats where the real damage was done.
Soon the small village pub will gone and it will be only the 500 seater weatherspoons foodie left standing.
Dominic, Manchester, UK
Regarding the Kings Arms in Ely, it's not surprising that they are struggling. The pub is rather small, not particularly attractive, has only just put in tables/got on the food-serving bandwagon, and is in competition with:
The Lamb (20 metres away, quiet, comfy)
The Minster (22 metres away, gorgeous building, excellent food)
The High Flyer
The Cutter (by the river, very nice, great food)
The Maltings (modern, good food, by the river)
The -one-on-the-way-down-the-hill (whose, name I can never remember) (not great food, but rea,lly old fashioned and a lovely building)
The Fountain (never been there, can't comment)
There are probably more, but I can't recall them at present.
And those are just the ones in or near the centre. There are more pubs, which are closer together, than in the village I grew up in, which was both a mining village and has more people than Ely does!
Claire, Ely,
Market forces only operate unfairly when someone steps in to try and affect the market externally. The worst examples are governments, who keep meddling around with taxes, interest rates etc. and the press, who, because every story is "sensationalised" they can swing the mood of the nation. House prices and elections are prime examples.
House prices are an extreme example of the influence from the press. Until a couple of months ago the press reports were all about how wonderful house price inflation was, that prices cannot go down and it is time to buy, buy, buy. So Joe Public took out massive debt desperate to get on the bandwagon, Now the majority of reports are predicting lower prices, so Joe Public is holding back waiting for prices to fall. And so they will fall.
Bob Travels, Stevenage,
People who take our current economics of market forces as though they are a law of nature are mistaken. When examined closely, it can always be shown that the some of the so-called market forces are operating unfairly. Then, once something is extinct, you can't get it back again. Without pubs, Britain would be nothing more than a boring, cloudy, grumpy alternative to Saudi Arabia, so why don't we all emigrate there and save money on Central Heating?
Verano, London, UK
This is another market force. So what? If the pubs are not offering the public the product at the price they want it, then they will go out of business.
I am fed up with the "save this", "save that" mentality. Let the market decide, no customers mean exactly that, "NOBODY WANTS THEM", find something that people want to spend money on and open a business in that area.
Move with the times and demand and stop trying to force you're ideas and ideals down our throats.
Bob Travels, Stevenage,
call it whatyou like but its equality and the vast amount of items fighting for the disposable income of the drinking classes. The pub like the cinema has had its day and a 50% reduction in numbers over the next few years will not be missed, Another reason is advertising, the capitalism mafia want millions watching theri pitch on tv to buy goods,its not sad to see the pub go, its sad to read how many believe in the myth of the opium houses as a place of pleasure and fun.
MICAHEL, cahersiveen>adams towns, madness
Pubs are losing trade and closing down because most of them are dirty, smelly, overpriced horrible places in which lots of people don't want to spend any time. Or money.
Selina, Southport,
I think there is a trend towards dong more things allown without community. Drinking at home, internet, etc. All ties to the community are slowly being cut. It is no surprise that people are feeling more and more alienated. Pubs are just mone more sign.
Nick Knight, Skerries, Ireland
£3 or £4 for a pint of beer in a pub.
That might have been okay when house prices were going up and people felt flush.
Not any more. From what I have read here and elsewhere, it is very apparent that
-the pubcos are only concerned about the most profitable of their pubs
-nulab will use any excuse to raise taxes, anyone notice how all the 'news' about binge drinking appeared just before the budget?
Pete, Bristol, UK
The smoking ban means the smokers are forced outside. Licencing and environmental health departments now deal with more noise nuisance complaints. The argument that the pub was there before the house isn't relevant these days, thank goodness.The reality is that today people don't need to go to pubs to have a drink. Town centre pubs and bars will always do well because that is where the young want to go, meet up and move on. Those that contribute to crime, anti social behaviour and allow drugs are now more easily dealt with, again thank goodness.Local village pubs often resemble 'The Slaughteed Lamb' being full of the usual cliques, the arrogant fairly well off boors or the local lowlife. Those that know what their local clientele want, serve good food and do not annoy their neighbours as well as appeal to the infrequent customer will do well. Pubs should have been allowed to be smoking or non-smoking.
Robbo, Maidstone, Kent, UK
My sister and her husband ran a local country pub for a couple of years on a lease, the pubco were charging them top dollar for the beers etc while their own puibs in the same village were paying two thirds of the price, the other factor was that Sky tv for football was way too exorbitant to cover the amount of drinkersand the clientele all went to the chain pubs when games were on.
Kev Somers, Hertford, Herts UK
Anyone who doubts that the smoking ban was the final nail in the pub's coffin needs their head examined. Well done all of you who insisted on us living in an increasingly sanitised and controlled world. Shame on the rest of us for letting it happen so easily.
Brian Phelan, Banteer, Ireland
The pubcos, among them Punch & Green King as possibly the worst offenders, have paid unsustainable inflated prices for many pubs. Planners who allow the fall back position of conversion to domestic property and mugs who think they can run a pub with excessive rents & "wet rents" (overpriced long distance beer from the likes of Green King) complete the unsustainability model. If you want your local pubs to survive support those who sell "less travelled beer" and get your pub if it is deserving-listed.
David Raynes, Bath,
As predicted by those doomsayers before the smoking ban. The pub is not as much fun as it used to be, much like modern life compared to beer's heyday of the 70's. To go for a pint during the working day has now become entirely unacceptable to employers, having one pint after work now attracts worried head-shaking if you're going to drive and going out to get merry is seen as binge-drinking by the Neo-Puritans. As for lighting up, well, you're a murderer and unfit to be allowed in the building. Neo-Puritans don't go to pubs and yet have been allowed to ruin them for Merry Olde England. In my view people should be encouraged to spend their money with their local publican in legal activities, including smoking. I don't hear of illegal drug dealers wringing their hands over the recession. At least those in a pub are obeying the law of the land and paying taxes. And sadly then an easy target for the Puritanical chatterati. Shame on all the Health Mafia for this cultural vandalism.
Adrian Leahy, Wigan,
Pubs are going the way of all businesses that don't move with the times.
I don't think there are many people who fondly remember the old days when you walked into a pub to be greeted by half a dozen 'losers' nursing a pint and smoking rolled up fags - very welcoming.
As was the food, I well remember stopping at a poular road house in the New Forest and being served 2 slices of Mothers Pride bread and a triangle of Dairylea cheese as a 'ploughmans lunch'.
Drinkers are now more aware of the pub's tremendous mark up on beer and spirits because of more foreign travel and supermarkets.
Pubs are not dying they are committing SUICIDE.
GJB, Slough, Berkshire
What? Pubs not packed to the rafters with all those new visitors venturing out to enjoy a nice, clean, smoke free atmosphere? Still, at least I've saved myself a grand or so since the smoking ban came in - during which period I have spent around seven quid in a pub and then only because my arm was twisted. Enjoy.
Adrian, Wantage,
I have no sympathy with the pubs or the brewers.
For years they served up rubbish beer (remember Double Diamond ) with rubbish food and even worse service all in a smoke shrouded environment with the odd element of violence to make it diverting.
Hardly any effort was made to make pubs family friendly, elderly friendly or any other population slice friendly other than boozy 13 to 35 year-olds.
And if you didn't drink beer could you get a decent glass of wine in a pub, nah. If you did, could you afford it. Wine bars must have opened for a reason.
The brewers in particular and publicans in general have milked the English public for years and now it's pay back time.
David, Dubai & PL2, UAE & England
After spending33 years in the beer industry I am glad I am now out of it. All the talk of price, pubcos and supermarkets is all very well, but LORD YOUNG killed the british pub and beer industry.
We now have no major brewers left, hundreds of local, very good breweries have gone and we are left with banks and property companies owning large numbers of properties; I choose my words carefully when I say properties, because to them that is all they are.
If you want a decent pub that is maintained, improved and cared for support the family owned brewers who are putting up a fantastic rearguard action to save the traditional pub.
Just a word to the chancellor, putting 10p on a pint will not stop the binge drinker who spends 80 pounds on a Saturday night., but it will stop the pensioner who has 3 or 4 pints two or three times a week.
Paul, Cavirac, France
The publicans are hypocrites to complain about increases in drinks duty - they love them. Post such budgets they always increase drinks prices by double those imposed in the budget. I stopped going to pubs regularly because I was fed up with being ripped off.
Chris, Birmingham,
I gave up two pubs in Suffolk, one with Punch and the other with Adnams. The tourist 'seasons' that we were promised never materialised, the pub co's continously put up their prices (usually just before the chancellor put up his!) year after year with no heed to the tennant. After injecting a further £16k into the business to pay bills and VAT, I also just managed to get out just in time. It cost me a further £30k to get out with all creditors paid, only to be chased by the Inland Revenue for tax due on the sale of the fixtures and fittings! You can't win, it's extremely hard work and financially unrewarding. The 'retirement' dream of running your own pub in the country is surely over.
Alan, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire
We have so much to thank our stupid, short sighted, detached governments of all colours for. Working in cahoots with huge industries we have lost our heritage to chains and fizzy beer.
One could not come up with a better set of strategies to close these inoffensive, people and society friendly institutions than this series of blunders. Pubs - where people learn to drink sociably, laugh, enjoy company, meet strangers and even play darts are a loss to the very way we are.
And now we have wine bars and chains - oh my God.
Tom Taylor-Duxbury, Ludlow, UK
In Central London, a pub that is not tied can buy an 11 keg (88 pints) of a premium lager such as Stella for about £80 plus VAT. A tied pub has to pay around £120 plus VAT to the Pubco.
That huge difference is what is driving many managed houses into the ground, not competition from the supermarkets.
Paulus, London , UK
Good ridance.
Fabio C, London, UK