WESTBURY landlords have said they are facing an ‘incredibly tough’ time because of soaring costs with one landlord saying that the financial situation is being made worse by “archaic” business rates.
Another has said that landlords are ‘looking precariously towards the winter’ where they expect the cost of heating their pubs will put another financial strain on their business.
The landlords have spoken out following a report in The Guardian this month that revealed there are fewer pubs in England and Wales than ever before. The recent drop in the number of pubs has been blamed on the after-effects of the Covid-19 lockdowns, record-high inflation, and the soaring cost of energy.
Matt Dean, who owns The Angel Inn in town, says “It’s incredibly tough to run the business currently because there is a shortage of hospitality staff and at the same time costs are rising at an alarming rate. The price of beer, food and utility bills are all rising and it’s putting the squeeze on the hospitality business as a whole.
“The pot is empty – we’ve had to spend our savings and reserves just to stay afloat during covid and the subsequent lockdowns. The message is: please go out and support your local! If you don’t use it, you will most certainly lose it.
“We’re all looking precariously towards winter. Right now, we’re not using any heating at all but in a few months’ time we may find ourselves at the mercy of a huge energy bill.
“The most pressing issue is that business rates for small and medium businesses and pubs are paying a disproportionate amount of tax through business rates and the big players are being subsidised by the small players which doesn’t feel right.”
A consistent decline
Bob Musker from the Horse and Groom says that since the Licensing Act of 2003 which introduced a single licence scheme for premises which supply alcohol, his pub has seen a steady decline.
Bob explained, “The Licensing Act basically handed over consumption of alcohol to the supermarkets rather than pubs where it had been traditionally and since then we’ve noticed a consistent decline.
“There is a changing dynamic involved with pubs in this country as more and more people are drinking at home and abandoning their local. Part of this is a result of being told by government for two years to stay at home – this has resulted in many either creating their own mini-bar in their back garden or just simply drinking at home and this trend has continued since we’ve come out of lockdown.
Drinking at home is a “bomb waiting to go off”
“It is also more dangerous to drink at home as it can become more of your daily routine which can lead to alcoholism”, Bob added. “At a pub, you get cut off at a certain point and there is a certain level of responsibility that you just don’t get at home. It feels like the pubs are closing, but alcoholism at home is rising because of that. It’s a bomb waiting to go off.
“The business rates are just an immoral and archaic system of taxation and oddly enough the hospitality industry is the only industry that has to calculate their rates by telling them how much they take – it’s not calculated by square footage like a shop.
“Please come down and support your local pub. We want to bring back the social aspect of drinking which has disappeared in the town throughout lockdown. A pub is the original networking site, and it remains that to this day.”
