Yahoo Finance Britain's 'local pubs' are sliding into extinction
Enjoy your local pub while you can — as smaller drinking holes are fast becoming extinct.
More than 11,000 British pubs have closed in the past decade since the financial crisis, according to data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The number of pubs fell from around 50,000 to 39,000 in 2018 alone.
Organisations like the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) have documented this decline over many years.
However, the disappearance of local drinking holes cannot be simply attributed to the credit crisis. The ONS data shows that it is big pub chains that are largely to blame.
Turnover at local pubs has actually been largely stable since 2008 and employment at pubs has jumped back up. There are now 6% more jobs in pubs and bars than there were ten years ago, due to pubs increasingly offering food as well as drink and therefore requiring more kitchen staff.
The number of pubs closing down is due to “the big pub chains consolidating their businesses around bigger bars,” said the ONS.
“The large “pubcos” (nationwide companies with 250 or more outlets) have almost completely abandoned small pubs, disposing of lots of them in the early 2000s, concentrating instead on their bigger bars,” it added.
