80% of British landlords want to see the Chancellor banned from our pubs, but is his 4p per pint increase really to blame for the closure of four pubs a day?
Calderdale has not escaped, and on a drive through the area it’s impossible to miss inn after inn boarded up with to let signs hanging outside. The once thriving pub business has taken a hard hit with a rate of closures 14 times faster than in 2005.
Surely there must be more than the latest tax increase to have made such an impact. According to Bob Baldwin the brother of a popular local landlord it goes back to 1989 and the mergers and monopolies commission which limited the number of pubs that could be owned by one brewery in an area. "Back in those days the landlords had a passion for their job and they were respected for that. The pubco’s staff that bought the pubs the breweries had to sell are inexperienced, and just in it for the money."
The website http://www.punchsucks.co.uk/ demonstrates the disgust licensees have for these companies such as Enterprise Inns and Punch Taverns. They control everything, from the beer, to the staff and the gambling machines inside, charging high rents and forcing their landlords to charge high prices to meet the bigger cost of alcohol. "They’re being priced out of the market, and if they do manage to make a success of it the pubcos put up their rent! There’s no way they can survive" says Bob.
"We need committed landlords who love their pubs, who’ll stay for the long run not leave after 6 months. Locals like continuity it’s what makes the atmosphere good, which is what people come back for."
On a trip to my own local, The Big Six, a lively but tiny pub hidden away behind a terrace the regulars are more than happy to give their opinions on the pub closures. Mick Foster, 56, thinks it’s a combination of many things from last years smoking ban to the interior design of many modern pubs. "They’re all open plan. If there are teenagers being rowdy you can’t escape. I’d rather be somewhere with a few smaller rooms and areas so I can get away and just be with the people I want to see but that’s getting harder and harder to find these days."
John Baldwin, 45 landlord at the Big Six also has a few suggestions. He feels that with the rise of the Pub Company, and people thinking that they can make a lot of money from owning a pub there’s just too many of them. In a changing society that has seen people visiting their local less frequently the fact that there are even more pubs just isn’t going to work. Gone are the days where men walking home from work would drop in for a pint or three, we’re now in debt up to our eye balls and rush home in our cars to save the little money we make to spend on our sky high mortgages and organic veg.
"Supermarkets haven’t helped" says John. "It started on New Years Eve at the millennium when pubs and clubs charged a fortune to go out and drink. People, especially young people realised that instead of spending their money in town centre pubs they could buy much cheaper alcohol in the supermarket and still have an enjoyable time in their own homes. This has become even more of a problem with the smoking ban, now people can drink cheaply and smoke inside in their own homes it’s not surprising they’d rather stay in than venture out to the pub."
But maybe what we’re seeing is simply evolution, a sort of survival of the fittest. When the less popular maybe even badly run pubs die out won’t we be left with the best of the best offering exactly what we want? Maybe but it’s still not fair and although there’s lots of problems and reasons behind this loss of a British institution maybe landlords have a point in banning Mr Darling. The final nail in the coffin could be that 4 pence.
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