Time for a "putting things into perspective" post. On the topic of disappearing pubs.Things soon get hyped up. Especially when newspapers get involved. They love throwing around terms like "unprecedented" and "never before". It applies to more than just the beer worrld, but I'm limiting myself. To just pubs.
"Pubs closing at an unprecedented rate." That's the current refrain. But how true is it? I just happen to have the figures for the number of pubs in England and Wales for the period 1900 to 2004. Let's take a look at them, shall we?
In 1900 there were 102,189 pubs in England and Wales. That's the time when local magistrates were actively trying to reduce the number of pubs. You can see just how successful they were. By 1920 there were just 83,432, a drop of 18,757. On average, just over 2.5 pubs closed every day throughout that 20 year period. While at the same time the population increased by 16%. While in 1900 there were 298 people per pub, by 1920 it was 422. So, taking into account population changes, the number of pubs fell by a massive 41%.
After 1920, the number of pubs continued to decline, but at a much slower rate. The nadir was reached in 1972, when just 63,732 remained. That's slightly more than one a day.
The next bit is what surprised me. The number of pubs then began to increase again. In 2004, the last year I've got figures for, it was up to 81,455. An increase of 17,723, a rate of 1.5 new pubs per day. All the pub losses from the 1920's to the 1970's had bee wiped out. I was gob-smacked when I realised that the number of pubs had been increasing all through my drinking life.
This graph makes the long-term trends very clear:
It's sad that many landlords are losing their businesses and their homes. But let's not get hysterical. The rate of closures isn't "unprecedented". Painful, but not unprecedented.
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18 comments:
Ron:
More mythbusting! Do you have any suggestions as to where the increase in the 1980s and 190s came from? Perhaps some of the increase can be attributed to the conversion of previously unlicensed premises by Wetherspoons and the like?
Even though the rate of closure may not be unprecedented, it's still not good news.
What would be interesting would be to find out the reasons for pub closures now and in the past. I think CAMRA have a point about high duty, VAT and restrictive practices around the tie not helping. But a lot of closures in the past thirty years have been because of economic factors. If you walk around east Manchester (Ancoats,Beswick, Bradford, Clayton) you'll see lots of boarded up Victorian pubs, many ex-Wilsons houses. It's because the factories shut in the early 80's and their clientele disappeared. I'm sure the same is true in many manufacturing, mining and shipbuilding areas of the North and Midlands.
However, on looking at your figures more closely, 1905-1910 seems to have the highest decline - 6,994 over five years, which equates to 26.9 per week compared with the 39 per week that the British Beer and Pub Association is claiming for the second half of 2008. Admittedly, the BBPA press release refers to "Britain", presumably including Scotland, while yours are for England and Wales. And adjusting them for population, as you have done, makes a further difference. But the use of "unprecedented" may not be so indefensible.
Brilliant statistic Ron. Stats are good!
Chap, there was a change in attitude of the licensing authorities in the 1970's. Before they would virtually never issue a new license unless one or more old licences were surrendered. In the 1960's an operation like Wetherspoon's wouldn't have been able to get off the ground, because they wouldn't have been able to get licenses.
Matt, in the first half of the 20th century it was the policy of the licensing authorities to reduce the number of licenses. Especially in the early decades they actively pursued the removal of licenses. So the root cause wasn't really economics.
Chap, I'm still working on the numbers for the whole of the UK. And I want to get more detailed figures for the period 1890 - 1914 which is when the number fell the most sharply.
An interesting post - nice to see a different take on the doom and gloom.
Unfortunately, the numbers do not reflect the observed reality of the situation. In my local area there has only been one pub in the last thirty years or more than can be regarded as "new", and that was a "Hogshead" chain pub, now a Wetherspoons, that was set up in a former large shop, but a pub two doors away was pulled down the same year. I could probably come up with something like 20 pubs that have closed in the same period in the town. If the surrounding villages were taken into account, the toll would be much higher. If we take the pubs closed since 1875, which is the earliest reliable list of pubs that I have (from a trade directory), we have lost about half, mostly just before and just after the Second War.
I am sure that anybody would be able to count far more pubs that have closed than new one that have opened.
Something must be distorting the figures. It seems that every third former shop in my town is a food place of some sort, many of which are licensed. Hotels are licensed, restaurants are licensed, cinemas are licensed, bowling-alleys are licensed, golf-courses are licensed (although I suppose they would be under the "club" banner) - even our local ski-slope is licensed.
I would suspect that the licensing of public-access recreational establishments, and the increase in the number of those establishments, is responsible for the bulk of the increase.
Graham, the numbers I've given are just pubs. I left out the figures for hotels, restaurants and clubs to make the trends in pubs more obvious.
I agree that the figures contradict what I would have expected from personal observation. I'm at a loss to say where all these new pubs could be.
Between 1974 and 2004 there was an enormous increase in the total number of licenses (pubs, hotels, restaurants, clubs, off licences). For the whole of the UK, it went from 152,644 to 200,893. Restricted on licences (restaurants, hotels) rose from 15,100 to 30,555. Off licences from 34,658 to 53,097.
I am familiar with some of the larger British cities, e.g., London, Leeds, Manchester, Leicester, Edinburgh. And some smaller ones, e.g., Bath, Brighton, York. I've been to some small towns too (e.g., Woodstock, near where Churchill's family estate is) and many others. In all these it seemed to me there was a large number of pubs to choose from, often e.g., in London or Manchester, 3, 4 or 5 on a city block (so to speak).
I recognize the closure issue but I wonder if it affects mostly rural pubs due in part to the drinking and driving issue.
There are away more pubs in the places I've mentioned than in the average North American city. Lots of choice. Even if you cut them by half that would be plenty I think. In some ways the exposure of lots of pubs to public view is not a good thing, especially viz. youth and binge drinking is a recognized problem in modern Britain. Even if London had half the pubs it does that would be plenty IMO.
Gary
As it's anecdotal evidence hour, I'll add my unsubstantiated theory: The pubs closing are the 'locals'. Where I live the serious drinking of a Friday and Saturday night has migrated into the city centre, away from where people live. Motorisation and atomisation in the suburbs also play a role. Lots of people don't buy their groceries, newspapers or hardware in the nearest place to where they live. Why do you expect them to do their drinking there?
How are you managing to separate pubs from the rest of the on-trade? Because I would have to agree with Graham that it’s a simple matter of increased licenses but fewer pubs. My own detailed records show a marked rise in the number of licences given to drinks premises-clubs etc but the number of pubs has fallen year on year. I worked for the local authority in the 90s’ and no official distinction was made between a club and a pub, for example. Even now, it’s only my own knowledge lets me isolate pubs from clubs and bars, so I’m interested in how you manage it.
Tyson, the figures published by the BBPA in their statistical handbook list pubs, restaurants, hotels and clubs separately.
Each of those classes has a different licence, which why they can be so easily divided out.
I know it goes against what casual observation would suggest, but the numbers don't lie. The number of public house licences rose significantly between 1974 and 2004.
Restaurants and hotels, yes. But what type of premise do you mean by club?
There are two differnt types of club in the BBPA figures: registered clubs and restricted clubs. I don't have the explanation of the difference between the two to hand. The restricted clubs category was established by the 1962 Licensing Act. I assume registered clubs covers things like workingmen's clubs and conservative clubs.
The 1961 Act was infamous for abolishing Justice’s absolute right to refuse a licence. This, according to questions asked in parliament, led to an increase of 13000 licences in 10 years. Unfortunately, I don’t have a copy of the Act at hand. The 1964 Act only mentions registered clubs (and an interesting section on Seaman’s Canteens) which are indeed any clubs run solely for their member’s interests. This implies that restricted clubs are those run for pure profit.
Either way, taking both these out of the equation still leaves a lot of premises that would be included as pubs in the figures you quote. A good percentage of these would be what would be recognisable as bars of some sort, not pubs. After the last boom of the 80s’, there has been a slow, but increasing decline in actual pubs but a vast growth in bars.
Hence my local licensing area shows a year on increase in numbers between 1998-2008 but there is a net loss in terms of pubs. New builds got fewer and fewer and apart from the odd conversion, pub stocks have whittled away. This is not casual observation but hard fact based on careful analysis and local knowledge.
Nor is it an isolated occurrence. One only has to look at central Manchester which is appears to be booming in terms of numbers. However, what proportion of these are actual pubs? Answer: a declining number. The pub losses of the period you mention have not been wiped out: merely replaced with substitutes.
Hi all,
interesting discussion. I am doing my MSc dissertation on licensing in the North West, West Midlands and East of Englands.
I note that in the North West and East of England mens alcohol consumption rates have stagnated in recent years yet womens consumption continues to grow.
Could this be on account of the shrinking number of pubs? As antiquated a perception as this might be, pub closures would have a much bigger effect on men than women wouldnt you agree?
Any advice on where to look for some evidence of 'men's pubs' closing down and 'women's bars' opening up in these areas?
thanks
chaz
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