Why British pubs are closing, and how we can save them

Things have been declining for decades. There were 67,800 pubs in Britain in 1982, and 60,100 as recently as 2002. By 2015, there were just 50,800.

Campaigners are calling for action to stop the trickle of pub closures turning into a flood. An average of 18 pubs a week are shutting down, according to research by Camra (Campaign for Real Ale), which puts much of the blame on a “triple whammy” tax burden. Rising business rates, which have also struck retailers on the high street, have combined with VAT and “one of the highest rates of beer duty across Europe” to put pub landlords under a strain they are finding it difficult to withstand, Camra says. Campaigners called for ministers to use Brexit as a chance to ease the burden.

“As Britain prepares to leave the European Union, the Government has a unique opportunity to update the tax system to better support pubs, which are a bastion of British culture and at the heart of communities across the country,” said Colin Valentine, Camra’s national chairman. We’ve heard the tax line before, notably from Wetherspoons’ Tim Martin. But is there really a problem? And how do we fix it? [ . . . ]

Read Full Story at INEWS: Why British pubs are closing, and how we can save them

THESE are the real reasons behind your local pub names

EVER wondered how your local got its name?

Albert Jack, who did exhaustive research for his book The Old Dog And Duck, The Secret Meanings Of Pub Names, says: “There’s something about a good honest boozer that can’t be beaten so I decided to find out where their names come from and what they mean.”

Some of the most interesting names are unique and don’t appear on the list.

For example, the longest pub name in the world is The Old Thirteenth Cheshire Astley Volunteer Rifleman Corps Inn in Stalybridge, near Manchester, named after a Victorian army corps. Oddly, the pub with the shortest name is also in Stalybridge – The Q Inn.

And in Hampshire there’s an inn called The Pub With No Name. It used to be called the White Horse but it’s said the locals tore down the sign to make it hard for strangers to find. Here’s the history of some of the most popular names [ . . . ]

Read Full Story at: The Express
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