Accrington and its surrounding district have lost 50 of 95 public houses since 2001. But why?

Fifteen years ago, taxi driver Basharat Khan would drive past the Hyndburn Inn on Accrington’s Blackburn Road and marvel at how packed it was. He never went inside – he doesn’t drink – but he noted its reliably heaving beer garden.

These days, Khan is inside the building most days: six years ago he converted it into a halal butcher’s shop, which he runs with his son, Waqar. Instead of pints of bitter, the pair sell 3kg of keema (mince) for £10.50 and give out Indian sweets rather than peanuts to their customers.

The Hyndburn Inn is one of 50 pubs in the east Lancashire district of Hyndburn to have closed since 2001, when the borough boasted 95 – a drop of 53%. Only Newham in east London has lost a higher percentage in that period, according to official figures released last week that show more than a quarter of the UK’s pubs have closed since 2001.

Khan thinks he knows why: “The smoking ban. I’ve been driving a taxi for 29 years and since the ban people don’t go out nearly as much. They think ‘sod it, I’ll stay at home.’”

It’s a difficult claim to prove, at least when seeking reasons for the prolonged nationwide plunge in pub numbers. While the 2007 ban may have hurt pubs with a high proportion of keen smokers, other establishments will have welcomed new patrons who previously shunned smoke-filled rooms.

And while the steepest national declines in pub numbers came in the two years that followed the smoking ban, this period also coincides with the deepest recession in living memory, when disposable incomes were squeezed until the pips squeaked.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Basharat Khan now operates the former Hyndburn Inn as a butcher’s shop. Photograph: Mark Waugh/The Observer

What is clear is that the factors at play in the decline of British pub culture are manifold.

Craig Watson, who shut one of his two Hyndburn pubs, the Bay Horse, in October, blames corporate greed, particularly the “beer tie”.

“It feels like everyone wants a piece of you. I’m tied to a brewery, which means I have to buy my drinks off them. Thwaites charges me £211 for 11 gallons of Strongbow Dark Fruits. I could get that for £120 elsewhere.”

Watson is one of many publicans who complain that being tied to a pub company forces them to pay through the nose for beer. Despite legislation designed to make it easier to cut the tie, those who have tried the process say it is far too difficult and costly, often pitting one-man-band publicans against companies with deep pockets and hefty legal teams.

This might also explain why the number of larger pubs has increased even as overall numbers have fallen. Big venues, often run by major pub companies, are better able to cope with punishing costs.

“To survive, you need all the sports on TV,” says Watson. “Subscribing to Sky and BT sports costs me £1,000 a month. I don’t have a licence to sell food but people expect it, so I put on a free spread of pies and peas on a weekend to keep people in. Then there’s the entertainment – bands and singers. I probably spend £1,500 a month on that. We can turn over £7,000 in a week but it doesn’t leave a lot left over.”

Business rates levied by the council are another major burden, costing him £7,000 a year.

According to the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA), pubs pay 2.8% of all business rates but account for just 0.5% of the revenue earned by companies that pay it.

One reason for that is that the tax is based on “rateable value” – essentially what the premises would be worth in rent per year on the open market. Pubs, which can often be in desirable locations, have seen these values rise significantly without their income keeping pace.

Nor can they mimic other business-rate payers in industries such as retail, some of whom have been able to offset the cost of running a bricks and mortar premises by selling products online.

The latest budget included some relief for properties with a rateable value below £51,000, saving the pub industry £60m, according to the BBPA. But the tax burden still weighs heavy – not least beer duty, which was frozen in the latest budget but rose by 42% between 2008 and 2013, a period in which beer sales fell by 24% and 5,000 pubs closed.

While supermarkets also pay the tax, they are able to keep costs down by subsidising beer prices with the margins they make on other products. Pubs cannot follow suit.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest David Pickup and Kim McMahon in the Warner Arms in Accrington town centre. Photograph: Mark Waugh/The Observer

The real ale group Camra, among others, has called for a lower rate of beer duty for pubs, as well as an overhaul of business rates.

Tax makes a big impact on pubs in areas such as Hyndburn, where the average weekly pay of £378.80 is £70 below the national average.

In the Warner Arms in Accrington town centre, David Pickup and Kim McMahon are enjoying pints of Tetley for £2.30. David is still reeling from a recent trip over the Pennines. “We went to Skipton, even though it’s in Yorkshire,” he says, pretending to spit on the carpet, “and two pints of bitter were £7.80!”

After price, social and demographic change is a nebulous but crucial factor in the malaise affecting pubs.

For instance, Watson bemoans noise complaints brought against him by a neighbour who also managed to silence the local church bells. “People are moving into areas near pubs that have been there for 100 years and complaining about being able to hear music on a Saturday night,” said Watson.

In his surviving pub, the Victoria, he has installed a £2,500 air-conditioning system because he is not allowed to open the windows on summer evenings.

Graham Jones, the Labour MP for Hyndburn, makes reference to the changing nature of the community in his constituency. Between 2001 and 2011, the BAME (black and minority ethnic) population increased by more than 3,000, up from 8.3% to 12.3%, most of whom are Muslim.

Quite a few Hyndburn pubs are now curry houses: the Farmer’s Glory is now Anar Kali and the Rising Bridge Inn is the Spice Room.

Jones also points to the rise of private landlords and the sell-off of social housing, which have led to the “collapse of communities” in inner urban areas by driving up living costs and making it harder for people to put down roots.

“We’ve got transient areas with private-sector landlords. Communities have been broken up … The local pub is local to no one because no one is local.

“Also, in the private rented sector, it is more likely to be people on exceedingly low incomes who will use the off-licence, not the public house.

“Do we want to support off-licences or pubs? I know which I would want to tax more.”

Ideas brewing

Spit-and-sawdust pubs are still out there if that’s what you’re looking for, but old-fashioned local drinking dens, perhaps patronised by a few regulars and a much-loved but ageing dog, are on the wane. As the number of pubs in Britain dwindles, those that survive tend to look a bit different.

Community pubs

One way that people can fight back against their local succumbing to financial pressures is to defend it – with their time, effort and money. For instance, some communities have stopped local pubs being turned into flats by having them declared “assets of community value”. This triggers a moratorium on development that can allow interested parties – often a loose collaboration of locals – to raise the cash to take it over.

In 2017, a report found that there were 50 co-operative pubs and 90 groups looking into setting one up.

Large and chain pubs

The Economies of Ale report from the ONS revealed that while the overall trend was for decline, there had been a surge in the number of larger drinking venues, both independently owned and run by large companies with a nationwide portfolio of alehouses.

Larger pubs may have higher fixed costs such as staffing and utility bills but, when run efficiently, allow owners to increase sales volumes and profits by significant amounts. With space for large tables they also skirt the borders of the restaurant trade.

Gastropubs

Now a fixture of British life. Many urban and rural pubs serve award-winning food and most now offer some form of menu. Shifting social and family dynamics mean many pubs are less dominated by male drinkers and more likely to welcome family diners.

There is also a financial incentive, in that so-called “wet-led” pubs, where boozing is the order of the day, rely on pretty thin profit margins. Margins on food tend to be much larger and deliver a huge boost to profits.

Taprooms

They are not strictly pubs, but brewery taprooms are an increasingly popular alternative to them. Breweries often have spare space they can transform into a bar where drinkers can try out the freshest new offerings. In many cases, they’ll collaborate with street food vendors, or rig up their own makeshift kitchens, to offer food as well. The Society of Independent Brewers (Siba) has 831 members and says 15% of them now run a taproom.

Rob Davies