Pub Closures, why are so many pubs closing?

Reputedly the smoking ban has had an impact on pubs, especially those without a place to set up an outside smoking area. But for many this has made the pub a much better and healthier place to go to. With the serious health implications of passive smoking, is a situation that can not be gone back on. However this is not considered the primary cause of pub closures, so let us explore more.

It is thought the main cause is the credit crunch and general increase in the cost of living.
The average price of a pint is now £2.40 - £2.80, (all be it you can find pubs keeping prices below this). It is not that long ago I seem to remember when we were heading towards a £2 pint. Eventually it reached £2 and since then the price of your pint seems to have spiraled. We are now in reach of a £3 pint (already in some pubs). If you elect to drink half pints, in some establishments inflation is even higher, adding 10 or 15 pence to your half (the half pint hyke). Is this forcing you to drink pints when you don't want to helping remedy binge drinking?
Well it is probably a fact that people are having to tighten their belts and think twice about going to their local to spend these extortionate prices for a night out, electing instead to stay in, in front of the TV sipping cheap supermarket booze. This is obviously hitting the pub trade.
It is understandable that because of slowing down of trade prices go up, but with prices going up less and less people will go out to pubs, creating a situation for prices to increase again. Catch 22, hopefully the trade will take note and reverse this trend!

Soaring energy price and excessive rents charged by the pub-owning companies have gone a long way to creating this problem. But the chancellor's whopping increase in beer duty has perhaps put the last nail in the coffin and with more increases promised for the future, the government are trying to fit the handles and organise the funeral as well.
Oh they say they are trying to tackle binge drinking, but they are not, leaving the supermarkets untouched to sell lead loss cheap booze to get people through their doors and some city centre pubs to push alcopops and aftershots to their young clientele. Whilst responsible drinkers are having to pay over inflated prices and good pubs are shutting down. Would these young binge drinkers get so drunk if they stuck to real ale?

Many pubs are owned by large "Pubcos", rather than breweries as in the good old days of Home Brewery, Shipstones, and Hardys and Hansons. They often charge rents so high that it is hard to for a publican make a living, then force the poor tenant to buy stock through them at prices up to 30% higher than in the free trade.
The main brewery to still own pubs in the area is Greene King - which ships beers here 121 miles from Bury St Edmunds, having closed the Kimberley brewery. So much for carbon footprints. Not only that, but
many of their beers still bear the names of long-defunct breweries such as Ruddles, Morland and the aforementioned Hardys and Hansons.

However there is some light at the end of the tunnel. Thanks mainly to the efforts of Phil Darby at the excellent Nottingham Brewery, Greene King are beginning to allow their pubs to buy locally produced
beers. The Bell Inn in the Square and the Lady Bay at Bridgford are good examples of pubs in the group now taking local brews.

The other good news is that we have a newer local brewer, Castle Rock, supplying quality beers to their expanding tied estate, many of which were pubs formerly struggling to survive. Also, we have three
local pub-owning groups who are promoting real ale, and saving pubs from closure. They are Bartsch Inns, Great Northern Inns and the Pub People Company. These four companies could be the saviours of our community pubs. Some examples of formerly run-down locals bought and nurtured back into life by these companies are the Coopers Arms, Porchester Road, the Globe, London Road, The Horse Chestnut,
Radcliffe (formerly the Cliff Inn), the Horse and Groom, Radford Road, the Horse and Jockey, Basford, the Hop Pole, Beeston, the Lincolnshire Poacher, Mansfield Road, the Lion, Mosley Street, Basford, the Malt Shovel, Beeston, the News House, Canal Street, the Plough, St. Peter's St, Radford, the Vat and Fiddle, Queens Bridge Road and the Victoria, Dovecote Lane, Beeston.

We urge you to make the effort to visit some of these and, indeed, the rest of
the four companies' pubs. Full listings are available from their websites.