Pubs closing at a rate of six a day as trade body pleads for rates relief

Britain lost 540 pubs in the three months to September, the highest quarterly figure on record and the equivalent of six closures a day, according to figures from the British Beer and Pub Association that the industry says understate the scale of what is coming.

The trade body’s analysis of property data shows that 1,460 pubs have closed permanently so far this year, with the heaviest losses in the West Midlands, Greater London and the north-west. The total number of pubs in the UK has fallen below 44,000, from about 60,000 at the turn of the century. Roughly 70% of those that closed in the past year were community pubs without a food offer, typically in towns and suburbs rather than city centres.

The association blames a combination of higher employer national insurance contributions, a 6.7% rise in the minimum wage last April, energy bills that remain about 60% above their 2021 level and, from next April, the end of the transitional scheme that has capped increases in business rates for hospitality premises since the last revaluation. It estimates that the average pub in England will see its rates bill rise by £12,000 when the cap lapses.

“A pub turning over £400,000 a year makes perhaps £20,000 profit if the landlord is lucky and works 70 hours a week,” said the association’s chief executive, Rosalind Hurst. “You cannot take £12,000 out of that and expect the lights to stay on. We are not asking for a handout. We are asking the Treasury not to switch off relief that it knows is keeping thousands of businesses alive.”

The chancellor promised in last year’s budget to introduce permanently lower rates multipliers for retail, hospitality and leisure premises from April 2027, funded by a higher rate on large distribution warehouses. The industry says a 12-month gap between the end of transitional relief and the new multipliers will see many pubs fail before help arrives, and has asked for the relief to be extended by a year at a cost it puts at £170m.

In Dudley, where four pubs have closed within a mile of the town centre since January, Gary Pickford, 54, closed the Lamp Tavern in August after 11 years. “My rates went from £9,800 to a figure the valuation office tells me will be £23,000,” he said. “My beer was £4.20 a pint and I was already losing regulars to the supermarket. There is a point where you are working for the government and the brewery, and it had gone past that.”

Not every number points down. Pubs that have survived are, on average, taking more money, and the association’s members report that food sales and live events now account for 48% of turnover against 31% a decade ago. Analysts at the consultancy CGA say the market is “consolidating into fewer, bigger, busier” venues, a trend that leaves outer estates and villages with none.

A Treasury spokesperson said the government had “already cut alcohol duty on draught beer twice” and would set out its plans for business rates at the budget on 25 November.