Posted on 07/12/2025 12:48:41 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
British pubs will close down at the rate of one a day this year, the industry’s trade body has warned, blaming high business taxes. At the same time, the hospitality sector has called on ministers to tackle “eye-watering” costs.
The British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA), which represents more than 20,000 pubs in the UK, said it expects 378 to close this year in England, Scotland and Wales, at a cost of 5,600 jobs.
This would mark an increase on last year’s 350 closures, continuing a long-term trend that has made more than 15,000 pubs call last orders once and for all since 2000.
The BBPA singled out business rates as one of the hardest costs for the industry to bear, but said that it was “not too late” for the government to reform the tax.
Business rates are based on a property’s “rateable value”, an estimate by the Valuation Office Agency of how much it would cost to rent the premises.
Pubs’ business rates tend to be disproportionately high in relation to their financial viability because pubs often occupy high-value buildings, while being run on very tight profit margins.
The BBPA also highlighted other costs affecting the UK’s 45,000 pubs, including beer duty and VAT, which it said meant £1 in every £4 spent on beer went directly to the Treasury.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
I’ve been watching last season’s Clarkson Farm with interest as he’s attempting to buy a pub. Most of them exist in 400 year old buildings and the village councils are requiring astronomical fees to get them “up to code” and pay the licensing fees for alcohol, restaurant, and butcher shop that he wants to include. I’m talking in the hundreds of thousands of pounds. Then they won’t allow him to park cars anywhere! It’s amazing how they continue to cockblock him from every angle.
That's an average of more than 600 per year. Why are they panicking now about fewer than 400 closures per year?
I definitely think Jeremy is conservative.
all I know is I would go nuts if i had live under that oppression.
Clarkson is a British Conservative which is different from an American Conservative.
Petty tyrants who are jealous of his success. Evil people who are the ones who aspired to be political officers in the USSR. I have nothing but contempt for such people.
“Mohammed” don’t drink.
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