{"id":4149,"date":"2024-01-29T10:45:26","date_gmt":"2024-01-29T10:45:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/?p=4149"},"modified":"2024-01-29T10:45:26","modified_gmt":"2024-01-29T10:45:26","slug":"pub-and-brewery-closures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/2024\/01\/29\/pub-and-brewery-closures\/","title":{"rendered":"Pub and brewery closures"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Just before we went to print, the British Beer &amp; Pub Association (BBPA) released some figures on pub closures. These were published in the Morning Advertiser on 22 January. The total for 2023 was 509. The BBPA estimate that this cost the economy some 6,000 jobs and their chief executive, Emma McClarkin, commented, \u201c<em>When a community loses a pub, it does not just lose the building and jobs, it loses a cultural asset at the heart of the community that is impossible to replace. In any local economy or community, pubs are an economic bellwether and there is an obvious connection between the loss of pubs and the decline of local high streets.<\/em>\u201d It would be good if we could believe that all of the pub companies which the BBPA represent felt the same way. The BBPA\u2019s figures show that, over the last six years, pub losses have totalled 3,043, equivalent to a drop of 6%. This does, of course, include the unusual episode of the Covid pandemic, which is still having its effect. In the year to September 2023, insolvencies in the pub and bar trade rose to 725 from 438 in in 2021\/2022, an increase of 65%. Accountants UHY Hacker Young reported that 67% of adults were spending less on non-essential items and 63% now regard drinking alcohol as a luxury. This figure had almost doubled over the previous 18 months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Looking forward to the Chancellor of the Exchequer\u2019s spring statement that is due in March, Ms McClarkin called on him to \u2018stop the rot\u2019 and encourage long term sustainability for both pubs and brewers with a reduction in beer duty, reform of the business rates system and a reduction in VAT for the hospitality trade. I suspect that most of us would support those aims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Breweries are suffering likewise. Also as we go to print, the closure of the highly regarded Windswept Brewery in Lossiemouth, Scotland, was announced. Figures obtained by the Morning Advertiser reveal that, during the first half of 2023, 35 breweries became insolvent. The total for the whole of 2022 was 38. Many breweries have been put under pressure by a combination of falling demand and increased raw material costs and overheads, especially energy costs. There was very little relief provided for businesses when these reached their peak. Increased interest rates are also having an effect, making debts harder to service. Small breweries do not, of course, have the benefit of economies of scale that keep the large breweries safe and those large breweries can also offer discounts, which can squeeze the products of smaller breweries out of a reducing trade. A lot of the pubs that are closing are independent operators, which also reduces the market available to small brewers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just before we went to print, the British Beer &amp; Pub Association (BBPA) released some figures on pub closures. These were published in the Morning Advertiser on 22 January. The&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4150,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4151,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4149\/revisions\/4151"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}