LAST CALL
Nearly six pubs closed a week last year with 4,500 jobs lost amid rising costs
The number of English and Welsh pubs fell to 45,345, from 47,613 in 2019
NEARLY six pubs were shut every week last year as they were hit by rising business costs.
In total, 289 boozers closed in 2024, resulting in 4,500 job losses.
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The number of English and Welsh pubs fell to 45,345, from 47,613 in 2019.
Industry leaders said closures were avoidable but had been forced by crippling energy bills.
They are calling on ministers to step in when the business rates discount for hospitality businesses is slashed in April.
And with the National Insurance rise and minimum wage boost, the British Beer and Pub Association warned of an additional £650million hit.
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The Sun’s Save Our Sups campaign is calling on ministers to throw a lifeline to boozers.
The BBPA’s Emma McClarkin said: “The scale of these closures is completely avoidable because pubs are doing a brisk trade.
“Consumer demand is there, however, profits are being wiped out with sky high bills and pubs are facing yet more rates and costs come April.”
A spokesperson for the UK Spirits Alliance said: “The crisis in pubs is also a crisis for the communities and businesses around them – one-in-four pubs have seen a distillery that supplies them shut down.
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“Pubs are more than pints. Spirits make landlords more profit and helps them appeal to a wider range of customers, yet successive Governments have squeezed our innovative gin industry by increasing duty. More than 70 per cent of a bottle is now tax.
"The Government should back our pubs and the distillers who supply them instead of taxing them out of existence”.
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