Share this post:
More than two hundred pubs disappeared from England and Wales in the first half of this year.
That’s the grim finding of new government data, analysed by commercial property specialists and published by Sky News.
The figures show 209 pubs were either demolished or converted for other uses in the first six months of 2025 – an average of eight closures every single week.
Since the start of 2020, some 2,283 pubs have been lost, with the South East hit hardest in the latest period, losing 31.
Industry leaders call the pattern “heartbreaking” and warn it is set to accelerate.
They point to a “toxic cocktail” of higher business rates, energy bills, staffing costs and insurance premiums – costs that have drained profits until “staying open becomes impossible.”
The tax bombshell behind closures
For many landlords, the real killer has been business rates relief being slashed.
During the pandemic and its aftermath, hospitality businesses benefited from a 75 per cent discount.
That ended in March. The 2025/26 tax year brought in only 40 per cent relief, capped at £110,000 per business.
That might sound technical, but in practice it is devastating.
Analysts say it has left the sector with an extra £215 million in tax bills. For a small pub, the annual rates bill has leapt from around £3,900 to more than £9,400 – a 140 per cent increase.
The rise comes on top of increases to the national minimum wage and employer National Insurance contributions – extra costs that may sound progressive in theory, but without balancing relief have simply made already tight margins unsustainable.
This is the context in which Oakman Inns & Restaurants, a respected operator of nearly 20 years, fell into administration this summer.
Its pubs have been sold off to a rival, but the administration is a stark symbol of what is happening right across the trade.
The government’s answer: planning tweaks and platitudes
In response, ministers have pointed to reforms in the planning system designed to protect pubs and music venues from noise complaints.
Developers building new flats near existing venues will now have to soundproof their properties, not the other way round.
It is a sensible idea – and may stop another drawn-out saga like the one faced by Manchester’s Night and Day Café, which spent three years battling a noise complaint from a neighbour who moved in during lockdown.
But while this “agent of change” policy will help prevent some future conflicts, it does nothing for venues already trapped in disputes with neighbours.
Nor does it address the bills dropping on doormats this month. As one pub manager told us: “Soundproofing rules don’t pay the gas bill.”
Meanwhile, the government’s much-vaunted Small Business Plan is long on rhetoric and short on relevance.
It tells of late-payment crackdowns, finance portals and digital advisory services.
These might please large banks, fintech firms and corporate chains – but for a pub trying to decide whether to open on a Tuesday night, they are as useful as a chocolate teapot.
#TaxedOut: the industry fights back
Against this backdrop, the hospitality sector has launched its own coordinated campaign. Under the banner #TaxedOut, pubs, bars, restaurants and cafés are demanding three specific changes:
-
Reduce VAT on hospitality services to levels comparable with most of Europe.
-
Reverse the increase in employer NICs, or at least provide reliefs for sectors most at risk.
-
Restore the 75 per cent business rates relief that was scrapped in March.
On social media, photos of A-frames outside pubs bearing these demands have gone viral.
This is not marketing spin but a grassroots protest – a visible sign that the sector feels it is being deliberately bled dry.
UKHospitality warns that since the 2024 Budget alone, more than 69,000 jobs have been lost in the sector.
One-third of businesses are now operating at a loss.
And customer numbers remain about 25 per cent down on 2019, with takings down as much as 40 per cent in some venues.
Vox Political’s view: a strategy for elimination
What’s happening is exactly what This Site has been warning about.
The true issue is living standards.
People do not go out like they used to because they cannot afford it.
A pint that pushes £6, plus a taxi home, plus a cover charge, is not realistic for millions of working people in 2025.
That’s why some locals open only three nights a week – not because licensees want to, but because the numbers don’t add up.
Yet the government insists on withdrawing support at the very moment it is most needed.
Business rates relief has been cut.
NICs have been raised.
VAT remains at a punishing 20 per cent, when in most of Europe it sits between 10 and 13 per cent.
And while ministers boast about small business “reset plans,” the real beneficiaries are plain to see: big chains that can absorb short-term costs, fintech firms selling digital services, delivery apps that skim off a percentage of every order, and developers eyeing up prime real estate once the independents have gone under.
This is cultural erasure disguised as economic policy.
Pubs and cafés are not middle-class indulgences – they are part of our social infrastructure, one of the last civic spaces left.
Losing them isn’t just an economic failure; it is a betrayal of working-class culture.
The industry knows what it needs: a VAT cut, NIC relief, and restored business rates support.
Without these, closures will accelerate, not slow down.
Planning reforms and glossy strategies will not bring people through the door. They will not replace the 2,283 pubs lost since 2020.
And they will not keep the lights on in locals that are now open three nights a week at best.
Unless policy shifts quickly, we are not looking at a temporary slump.
We are watching the managed elimination of Britain’s pub culture – one closure at a time, eight per week, until only the big chains remain.
Share this post:
Eight pub closures a week: tax and costs – not noise rules – are killing Britain’s locals
Share this post:
More than two hundred pubs disappeared from England and Wales in the first half of this year.
That’s the grim finding of new government data, analysed by commercial property specialists and published by Sky News.
The figures show 209 pubs were either demolished or converted for other uses in the first six months of 2025 – an average of eight closures every single week.
Since the start of 2020, some 2,283 pubs have been lost, with the South East hit hardest in the latest period, losing 31.
Industry leaders call the pattern “heartbreaking” and warn it is set to accelerate.
They point to a “toxic cocktail” of higher business rates, energy bills, staffing costs and insurance premiums – costs that have drained profits until “staying open becomes impossible.”
The tax bombshell behind closures
For many landlords, the real killer has been business rates relief being slashed.
During the pandemic and its aftermath, hospitality businesses benefited from a 75 per cent discount.
That ended in March. The 2025/26 tax year brought in only 40 per cent relief, capped at £110,000 per business.
That might sound technical, but in practice it is devastating.
Analysts say it has left the sector with an extra £215 million in tax bills. For a small pub, the annual rates bill has leapt from around £3,900 to more than £9,400 – a 140 per cent increase.
The rise comes on top of increases to the national minimum wage and employer National Insurance contributions – extra costs that may sound progressive in theory, but without balancing relief have simply made already tight margins unsustainable.
This is the context in which Oakman Inns & Restaurants, a respected operator of nearly 20 years, fell into administration this summer.
Its pubs have been sold off to a rival, but the administration is a stark symbol of what is happening right across the trade.
The government’s answer: planning tweaks and platitudes
In response, ministers have pointed to reforms in the planning system designed to protect pubs and music venues from noise complaints.
Developers building new flats near existing venues will now have to soundproof their properties, not the other way round.
It is a sensible idea – and may stop another drawn-out saga like the one faced by Manchester’s Night and Day Café, which spent three years battling a noise complaint from a neighbour who moved in during lockdown.
But while this “agent of change” policy will help prevent some future conflicts, it does nothing for venues already trapped in disputes with neighbours.
Nor does it address the bills dropping on doormats this month. As one pub manager told us: “Soundproofing rules don’t pay the gas bill.”
Meanwhile, the government’s much-vaunted Small Business Plan is long on rhetoric and short on relevance.
It tells of late-payment crackdowns, finance portals and digital advisory services.
These might please large banks, fintech firms and corporate chains – but for a pub trying to decide whether to open on a Tuesday night, they are as useful as a chocolate teapot.
#TaxedOut: the industry fights back
Against this backdrop, the hospitality sector has launched its own coordinated campaign. Under the banner #TaxedOut, pubs, bars, restaurants and cafés are demanding three specific changes:
Reduce VAT on hospitality services to levels comparable with most of Europe.
Reverse the increase in employer NICs, or at least provide reliefs for sectors most at risk.
Restore the 75 per cent business rates relief that was scrapped in March.
On social media, photos of A-frames outside pubs bearing these demands have gone viral.
This is not marketing spin but a grassroots protest – a visible sign that the sector feels it is being deliberately bled dry.
UKHospitality warns that since the 2024 Budget alone, more than 69,000 jobs have been lost in the sector.
One-third of businesses are now operating at a loss.
And customer numbers remain about 25 per cent down on 2019, with takings down as much as 40 per cent in some venues.
Vox Political’s view: a strategy for elimination
What’s happening is exactly what This Site has been warning about.
The true issue is living standards.
People do not go out like they used to because they cannot afford it.
A pint that pushes £6, plus a taxi home, plus a cover charge, is not realistic for millions of working people in 2025.
That’s why some locals open only three nights a week – not because licensees want to, but because the numbers don’t add up.
Yet the government insists on withdrawing support at the very moment it is most needed.
Business rates relief has been cut.
NICs have been raised.
VAT remains at a punishing 20 per cent, when in most of Europe it sits between 10 and 13 per cent.
And while ministers boast about small business “reset plans,” the real beneficiaries are plain to see: big chains that can absorb short-term costs, fintech firms selling digital services, delivery apps that skim off a percentage of every order, and developers eyeing up prime real estate once the independents have gone under.
This is cultural erasure disguised as economic policy.
Pubs and cafés are not middle-class indulgences – they are part of our social infrastructure, one of the last civic spaces left.
Losing them isn’t just an economic failure; it is a betrayal of working-class culture.
The industry knows what it needs: a VAT cut, NIC relief, and restored business rates support.
Without these, closures will accelerate, not slow down.
Planning reforms and glossy strategies will not bring people through the door. They will not replace the 2,283 pubs lost since 2020.
And they will not keep the lights on in locals that are now open three nights a week at best.
Unless policy shifts quickly, we are not looking at a temporary slump.
We are watching the managed elimination of Britain’s pub culture – one closure at a time, eight per week, until only the big chains remain.
Share this post:
you might also like
The pub’s not too loud — it’s too quiet, too often
Ignorance, stupidity, or deliberate design? Is the government killing small firms under false pretences?
#TaxedOut and shut out: hospitality’s cry for help