Calling time on the British boozer

Pubs are the latest victims of the economic downturn. Is your local under threat - and what can we do about it?
Landlord Colm Powell stages a protest at the Punch and Judy

According to the British Beer and Pub Association, 36 pubs close every week. At the turn of the millennium, pubs were a major source of employment, accounting for one in five of all new jobs. But now, says Camra, closures have cost 44,000 jobs over the last five years, with another 43,000 projected to be lost over the next five. There have been 37 major brewery closures, accounting for 25% of all brewery employees. In 2008 alone 13 operators, running 960 pubs, have gone into administration.

So what's going on? Colm Powell, the soon-to-be ex-landlord of the Punch and Judy in Tonbridge, is in no doubt about why it happened to him. He thinks Enterprise Inns, a company that owns about 8,000 pubs across the country, is trying to force him out of the pubs he has run for 17 years. While Enterprise disputes his allegations, he's already been on a 10-day hunger strike, and intends to do it again; his website has been inundated with people with their own war stories to tell.

But, as I discovered when I researched an article for G2, there are lots of other reasons why pubs are having a hard time. Banks are tightening up on lending to them, and there are fewer pubs opening. Beer is getting more expensive to produce - the prices of aluminium, hops, oil and natural gas are all rising. Then there's the clampdowns on drink driving, which particularly affects rural pubs, and the smoking ban. And - worst of all for many publicans - cheap supermarket booze. It is, according to many in the industry, a perfect storm.

Is your local under threat - or has it already closed? Have you taken to having a tipple at home rather than at the pub? And - the million dollar question - what can we do to save the British boozer?

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