Sign of the Times

According to a study done for the British Beer and Pub Association, 39 pubs close each week in the UK. More specifically, there were 1566 closures between June and December 2009. The good news is there are 52,000 total pubs and there were 553 pubs that opened. I personally suffered from the phenomena of pub closures on the third and fifth days of my walk along the Cotswold Way. On Day 3 (Painswick to Dursley) we arrived in Ryeford, expecting refreshment at a pub indicated on our map. As you can see in the picture on the left we arrived too late. The Ryeford Arms was boarded up. We asked a man walking through the parking lot where we could find a pub nearby. We suggested King's Stanley (which was on the way, more or less) but he said their pub had closed too. Responding to our disappointment, he put it simply as, "Sign of the times." Fortunately he told us about a pub at 3/4 miles in the wrong direction (The Woolpack in Stonehouse) that was indeed open and making good lunches. Two days later we came up the pub shown in the picture on the right just north of the town of Cold Ashton. This pub may not close I suppose if a new publican is found but I think the To-Let sign is indeed an accurate reflection of the difficult economics of pubs in England today.

So what is the problem? I suppose one simple thing is that drinking is down. Since more people have cars, they are less obliged to frequent the local pub. Land values are up, making the opportunity costs of pubs rise. One thing that would seem to go against the land story is the highest rates of pub closure (-3% per week according to the study!) are in the regions called Tyne Tees and Granada (northern England) which are probably not the areas of high housing price increases. In Central and Southern England entry is higher relative to exit (but still net exit).