Just back on a visit to the Sussex area and I have been shocked by the number of pubs that have closed their doors in the last 6-12 months.

Travelling over to Tenterden in Kent it was noticeable that fewer rural pubs had shut in Kent than seems to be the case in West Sussex. Maybe it is the Tourist trade that helps the Kent pubs survive, but it seems that the poor landlords in West Sussex are really struggling.

Some of the pubs that have closed used to be really busy both with the food trade and the locals who were in for a pint or two and a gossip.

Is it the Supermarkets with their cheap alcohol that is killing the trade? It can't be the breathalyser as that was around even when they were popular and doing good business.

Is it just Sussex or all areas of UK, North and South, that are suffering?

It really seems to have been a bad 12 months in this area.

Oh dear, I think you've just started another "Smoker v Nonsmoker" thread. It'll all end in tears;)

Try the none smoking law, I smoke, don't use pubs any more. Cheaper buying a few beers to have at home, where I can smoke a ciggy, (lots of Pubs have closed in Germany, same reasons.





sorry Shacks.........

It's ok Arthur, if only I could use these prediction powers for the lottery numbers:{

mr not
took the old grinder out for a spin just last week (1934 gillet comfort) to tenterden- hoping to go to castletons oak, when bugger me got there and its a private house!!! so i said to the enemy- dont worry old thing ill get you a pint - its of to brightling to the fullers arms for us - forty mins later we land - bugger me its a house - tis a terrible situation

went hastings in the end and had fish n chips on the seafront v nice but not the same

sad spark.

A colleage at work was a landlord for a time. Some of it is due to greed by the breweries that folk are catching onto.

Tenancy offered by brewery at a low price, some one takes it on. Finds then that they can only purchase drinks, not just alcohol but soft drinks as well, from the brewery at inflated prices so has to either price themselves out of the market or sell some at a loss.

After a few months the rent gets incensed, and then again until the landlord needs a second job just to keep their heads above water.
Finally he/she gives up and along comes the next victim!!

Folk are catching on so there are less folk willing to take on pubs so the breweries sell them but with a covenant that prevents them being ever operated as a pub again

Or then again there's the 'night club' perversion.
Some years ago a friend came up to London for an interview: could he park in my yard for the afternoon? Sure, sez I, come a bit early and we'll stroll down the Old Kent Road & catch a sandwich & a beer.

Must have been 15 licenced premises we passed, all with doors open, but disclosing cleaning staff. "Sorry guvnor, we only open in the evenings, we've got a club licence now." Twelve hours later the road would be heaving & needless to say running with vomit and other even less desirable fluids. But at 13:00 hours, not a pint to be had, in a road in which 40 years previously every second premises would have been an honest pub. (and one or two dishonest ones, too.)

Sic transit gloria (or publia or summit.)

Combination of prices, smoking ban, few customers, rates and utility costs, recession and better price for alternate use.

Remember when visiting mate in Shropshire about a pub between Bridgnorth and Kidderminster set close to Severn where owner wanted to close.

Lots of opposition until he proved some desiring pub in village never darkened his door.................was more a statement of their property value enhanced by pub in village.

Think he just didn't renew license at renewal time hence pub ceases to be legally able to operate and closes................pub now 2 houses.

I don't think that West Sussex is particularly hard hit in this respect. Prior to heading out East I worked as a chauffeur driving air crew and it took me all over the UK.

Many of the pubs which are now closed either originally served a rural community that was not particularly mobile (now everyone has a car) or a village where people lived and worked within a small radius. Nowadays people will live in an idyllic village but work 2 hours commute (or more) away and thus they become dormitories apart from weekends and no one survives on 2 days trading a week.

A never ending succession of tax rises on alcohol, greedy Pub Co's and the smoking ban have indeed left their indelible mark on the industry but at the end of the day some of these pubs are just not viable today.

On the bright side.... CAMRA (love them or hate them) have led a tremendously successful campaign to reintroduce real beers and the number of breweries in the UK now is outstanding. They are selling beer and it's not usually to supermarkets so some pubs are doing aright.

Supermarkets.... now there's a real culprit.

There is a surge of new pubs opening up in our area on the back of a deal by a Lancashire brewery. I think it goes something like "we will loan you money to start up at low rates and in return you stock one of our real ales, you are then free to buy from anyone else too. Its working and there are more houses selling real ale now than for years.

as regards pubs closing heres another reasonhttp://alebaggersbeerblog.wordpress.com/2012/07/11/lets-call-time-on-the-beer-duty-escalator/

I can remember when decimalisation was introduced in 1971. This was shortly before I married (after which my pub-sojourns were somewhat curtailed).

When things settled down and I made my way to the local, I was taken aback when asked to pay 37½p for a pint of Guinness - that amounted to 7/6d in old money!

7/6 for a pint of Guinness? - someone was having a giraffe!

Up here in sunny Wigan I can name a half dozen pubs that have opened since Christmas, some with very extensive / expensive refurbs, and a couple more work in progress, a good sign. (though approx the same number have closed in the same period).

But generally the OP is right, the general trend is fewer pubs, especially the larger ones in the country. Many reasons, most allready stated. Folk don't have the same spare money they had a while ago, and tend to drink at home (Guinness £0.80 / can at supermarket, £3+ at pub, - no brainer).

Lid

I'm sure we had a pub in Aberdeen called The Invisible Arms. Can't find it now though...

Yes, it's a sign of the folk putting money into the business having a substantial alternative income.


I considered the Red Lion at Kirby le Soken, my second home. Had done for nearly 50 years. 103 miles from LHR, but no matter.

The landlord has put quite a lot into it, but it's just not the same. By the time I was 30, I'd lost count of the number of fun-packed sessions in that place.

Personally, I like 'em unshaven.



...oooops! I thought the title was Disappearing Pubes!

As generations are changing, are not social habits not also changing?

Two things come to mind:
Video games
Twitter/facebook/forums/virtual interaction/texting

That treads a bit on the territory pubs used to inahbit as social interactive zones.

Up here in sunny Wigan

Wasnt so sunny last week, Asda flooded and the price of pies went up:E

I guess we are lucky Lid in the fact that there are so many good micro breweries like Prospect and Allgates in the area all trying to get on the map. Seeing as you are a local have you tried the Crown at Worthington? best beer in the area and bloody good food as well!!

some sobering reading:

CAMRA - Campaign for Real Ale (http://www.camra.org.uk/countypubclosures)

:*

Pubs, to me, are an integral cornerstone of the culture of the British Isles. I'm saddened that the owners of such a gem are not careful to preserve them, but seem bent on destroying them, whether by taxes, smoking bans, taxes, excessive driving after consumption laws, and general rejection of traditional cultural icons.

Pubs should be a community meeting place that can accommodate everyone. They should have been left alone.

Such a tragic loss.

Last summer, ghosts drew me to 91 Denton Road Manchester, where the family pub seems to be in good fettle. Great Grandmother and my gran would have been conveyed in horse drawn carriages of course. I can find it, but not get it on Photobucket. Don't know how I did it before.

The answer is found in the question... and the subsequent questions that notice the decline in pubs...

you didn't find out that the pubs were closing because you had not been going... why had you not been going?

that might be the same reason not enough other people have been going to keep them open.

ghosts drew me to 91 Denton Road Manchester, where the family pub seems to be in good fettle.

91 Denton Road, Manchester - Google Maps (http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=91+Denton+Road,+Manchester&hl=en&ll=53.465007,-2.116649&spn=0.006515,0.019848&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=6.621431,20.324707&oq=91+Denton+Road+Manchester&hnear=91+Denton+Rd,+Audenshaw,+Manchester+M34+5BL,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=53.464911,-2.116714&panoid=HVFly80OGSfHmeJGUKTRkQ&cbp=12,111.54,,0,0)

I thought this was about Dr. Who trading in the TARDIS for something more compact.

My local, near Folkestone, used to be a free house, loads of character but the landlord, ex RAF Regiment, was one of the most miserable sods ever to walk the earth. Evenually he was given the heave by the owner and the pub was sold to a largish Kent brewery. Now been modernised, prices rocketed, lost most of it's character though. Pleasant family running it, parents and daughter, but all three have other jobs to keep their heads above water

There's just one hotel on our island, no pubs. Unfortunately it has all the ambience of a 1960s NAAFI. It's a choice of £3 a pint for indifferent beer or 30p a pint for my own home brewed "Traditional English Ale"!

It's just a change in demographics.Forty years ago there were pubs in every little village and you could guarantee that every weekday evening,not just at weekends,you could find a handful of jostlers propping up the bar.Now they are gone and the only ones to survive are selling overpriced food to weekend visitors.

It's sad, but the kids nowadays are not in the least bit interested
in going to the Pub.

I think the smoking ban has **** all to do with it - more likely the breathalyser and to a degree a change in society. I recall a village (Sandon in Herts) which 25 years ago had 3 pubs all of which went and this was way before the smoking ban. I also know of another village pub about 6 miles from there which has survived mostly due to outsiders like us going over for a pint and a meal while the majority of the villagers, who are now commuters, sit at home drinking bottles of Waitrose wine and have very little to do with village life.

I guess we are lucky Lid in the fact that there are so many good micro breweries like Prospect and Allgates in the area all trying to get on the map. Seeing as you are a local have you tried the Crown at Worthington? best beer in the area and bloody good food as well!!

Yes, we visit the Crown there occasionally for a meal & a pint (or two if wife drives !!). Just a couple of miles up the road. The White Crow at Worthington also has decent food.

I have a couple of bottles of prospect awaiting supping, I get them from Noel Chadwicks "emporium of fine food" !! in Standish.

Lid

more likely the breathalyserBack in the early 1960s we used to drive several miles out of town to a 200 year old remote pub. This was popular until the introduction of the breathalyser meant that the quantity of ale consumed had to be restricted (we used to hold drinking games such as the one where everyone sits around the table which is charged with drinks from the kitty and has to count sequentially avoiding the number seven, numbers including seven and also multiples thereof - the person has to say buzz instead and the direction of the counting progression reverses. Any mistake results in the offender having to 'down in one' a drink from the table.
It gets 'interesting' when 28 follows 27 and more difficult when 35, 37 and 42 occur and nigh on impossible from 70 onwards - not that it often reaches that far! The befuddling effect of numerous alcoholic beverages soon had a deleterious effect on one's ability to differentiate between numbers and buzzes.)

Over the next thirty years the number of customers dwindled until the then landlord (and owner) simply closed the doors and ceased trading.

This prompted 'action' from the local planning authority who served a prohibition notice on him preventing him from occupying the former bar and lounge as domestic living area:-
Licensee is barred from own lounge - News - The Independent (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/licensee-is-barred-from-own-lounge-1103859.html)

The traditional British Pub, eh?

What could be more British ... than sitting at the bar in the Star of India, a 500cc bottle of Kronenberg, a bowl of natchos, listening to ABBA on the piped music, watching two Polish teenagers setting fire to a Toyota Camry in the car park....what could be more British than that?

Dearest Darkroomsource as I haven't lived in UK since 2005 I am guilty of not going to the pubs every day, but when I visit twice a year I make up for my absence

All I can say is "USE IT or LOSE IT".


Aaron.

I blame Stella

When ya canna see the pub na more is a propitious time to stop imbibing.

An if it's gone entirely ere next ye return, repentance!

I concur with everything I've read on here about the pub trade and the breweries. Friend of mine, a divorcee with no experience of the licenced trade met and married a retired army NCO with a similar lack of experience. Much against my advice and the advice of friends she sold her house and put the equity into a pub in a popular Devon town.

Took them precisely two years to go bankrupt!

Two things come to mind:
Video games
PPRuNe/facebook/forums/virtual interaction/texting


lonewolf, it's funny you mention that.. Nial Frguson discussed the very point in the final part of the Reith Lectures: Civil and Uncivil societies.. you can find it here: BBC Radio 4 - The Reith Lectures, Niall Ferguson: The Rule of Law and Its Enemies: 2012, Civil and Uncivil Societies (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01jmxsk)

if you cant access it and want to due to geographic location let me know, the transcript is here : BBC Radio 4 - The Reith Lectures, Niall Ferguson: The Rule of Law and Its Enemies: 2012, Civil and Uncivil Societies - Niall Ferguson: Civil and Uncivil Societies (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01jmxsk/features/transcript)

extract:

What is happening? Well, for Putnam, it is primarily technology. First television, then the Internet - that has been the death of traditional associational life. But I take a different view. Facebook and its ilk create social networks that are huge - but weak. With 900 million active users – nine times the number four years ago – Facebook’s network is a vast tool enabling like-minded people to exchange like-minded opinions about, well, what they like.
Maybe, as Jared Cohen and Eric Schmidt argue, the consequences of such exchanges will indeed be revolutionary – though just how far Google or Facebook really played a decisive role in the Arab Spring is, I think, debatable. After all, Libyans did rather more than just un-friend Colonel Gaddafi. But I doubt very much that online communities are a substitute for traditional forms of association.
Could I have cleared the beach by poking my Facebook friends or creating a new Facebook group? I doubt it. A recent study revealed that most users in fact treat Facebook as a way to maintain contact with existing friends - often ones they no longer see regularly because they no longer live nearby.
The students surveyed were two and half times more likely to use Facebook this way than to initiate connections with strangers – which is what I had to do to clear the beach. It is not technology that has hollowed out civil society. It is something Tocqueville himself anticipated, in what is perhaps the most powerful passage in the whole of Democracy in America. Here he vividly imagines a future society in which associational life has died:
“The first thing that strikes the observation is an innumerable multitude of men, all equal and alike, incessantly endeavouring to procure the petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their lives. Each of them, living apart, is as a stranger to the fate of all the rest; his children and his private friends constitute to him the whole of mankind. As for the rest of his fellow citizens, he is close to them, but he does not see them; he touches them, but he does not feel them; he exists only in himself and for himself alone …

essentially, while technology allows us to socialise on a wider scale, accross borders and continents, our real social interaction, the immediate society around us becomes more remote..

while we on this site interact socially, decades ago the arguments, discussions and debates had here, would perhaps have been had in the pub socially.

Like an alignment of the planets there has been a multiplicity of coincidental factors that have all contributed to the demise of the traditional pub, and they have all been discussed above. Unfortunately those pubs which are thriving have gone down one of three routes:
1. The grotesque town or city centre chain pub; with identikit decor and standardized range of booze and food, both of which are cheap and not at all good. (Carlsberg lager, bright yellow chips etc etc) Daytime clientele seems to comprise mainly of unemployed chavs and alcoholic "life's casualties". Nighttime clientele seems to comprise mainly of anybody under 30 who wants to get smashed, shout & scream at their mates, " 'ave a larf!!", then vomit in the street and/or have a fight and/or get date raped.
2. The "Family pub"; What can i say about these monstrosities? As 1. above, but with a playden attached and peoples "little darlings" running amok.
3. The dreadful "Gastropub". There are pubs around that do superb food that are not "Gastropubs". Whats the difference? About £25 a head. These gastropubs are either fine dining restaurants masquerading as a pub or a pub masquerading as a fine dining restaurant.