This is excellent. We have been saying this for years in Northern Ireland. Our licensing system means that over the last 30 years, pub licenses have been sold off to supermarkets and off-sales, while the 'surrender principle' means no new licenses for pubs come into the market EVER!. In the last 10 years, of 132 pub licenses, 100 went to off-sales. In the last 30 years, only one 'new' license has been introduced to Belfast.
As a journalist myself doing a deep dive into pubs, I can say that this (while missing a lot, which isn’t a criticism) is a really excellent post, adding real value. A geek who writes brilliantly, has an interest in humans, and thinks about what stuff means. Hats off.
This is an incredible piece of work, which builds on long standing campaigning by people like Mark Dodds, who've been highlighting the PE model as the root cause of (and who received an awful lot of push back from people in an around the pub and beer sector who looked on that as far too conspiratorially minded on his part). It explains why the decline isn't arrested, because the industry spokespersons in the British Beer and Pub Association know this very well, but their salary depends on them not knowing it, or at least not speaking about it. So, policy discussion avoids the actual cause and tinkers round the edges with weasel phrases like behaviour change and smoking bans and other factors that are contributory, to a point, but aren't doing the heavy lifting.
That said, I looked at the 'Is Your Local at Risk' and I did find it misleading only in so far as the model's predictive power relates solely to spatial dimensions. I look at the pubs in my home town - a depressed suburb of Manchester - and all of the pubs are at low risk, which given over half of them have closed in the last 15 years is strange. There used to be 3 pubs close to my parental home, and all are now closed. Every pub is in grave danger and part of that is because they can't rely on benevolent owners who will respect their place in the the fabric of community life, but because its a place where the decline of a certain type of pub is being driven not be gentrification pushing it out but because there were in truth too many pubs, built for a older age in which social drinking for all ages was just much more common; you'd need a pub every 500 metres to accommodate the demand. But this town is basically dying. In 15 years, the Manchester gentrification will reach it and its needs will change, but right now, there's low numbers of people in work, cheap supermarket booze and a community fundamentally transformed out of the collective experience that shaped their parents and grandparents social lives.
Thanks a lot! And I totally agree with your comments - this model is a huge simplification of reality focusing only one the most predictive factor which is caused and correlated with many many more factors which would make a more complete model.
Mightily depressing though this is, thank God somebody is actually doing the analysis! Interesting though to see how some 'vulnerable' pubs seem very lively in real life: like the Greyhound in Bessels Leigh, which was absolutely packed yesterday (though it may well be much quieter on other days).
In my rural community there does seem to be a healthy ecosystem of pubs (though the expensive gastropubs which might just as much be classified as restaurants seem to be prospering more than the traditional locals), even though many of them appear as red or amber. Do you think there's some adjustment which needs to be made for localities where driving distance is more significant than walking distance? Pubs crawls are off the table, of course, but the competitive incentives between pubs exists nonetheless.
Moreover - you've probably come across it already - this has reminded me of a really interesting report from Create Streets called "Brewing Communities", on the role that pubs play in new communities. I'm determined that my pub-starved rural village should one day have a pub (or even just a cafe!) to cater to its now almost 4,000 people, but starting one up seems like a challenge on a whole different level given the tax and planning obstacles. Here's the report - https://www.createstreets.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/BrewingCommunities_Online.pdf
Thanks for sharing this report! I think many nuances are possible to what I mapped, starting indeed with transportation links, driving distance or accessibility in general. Hope I can incorporate this in future editions.
This was very interesting. How the model performed over a much longer time series might be suggestive: one issue with analysing pub decline in Britain is when you think you should start measuring it from. But my main comment was on this:
"Australia's social infrastructure runs on not-for-profit clubs such as RSLs, surf lifesaving clubs, bowls clubs and leagues clubs, all member-owned, community-governed, and structured so that profits stay local. It's essentially the co-op model that Britain is only now discovering, except Australia built thousands of them."
Actually, Britain developed this model in the 19th century at the same time that it was greatly expanding pubs. Many were grouped together under the Club & Institute Union (CIU) umbrella.
I agree that re-invigorating this model needs to be part of the future, but the fact that social clubs have also seen a decline since 1990s, in both membership and clubs, suggests that the Putnam 'Bowling Alone' explanation might be the stronger one over the long term.
The challenge 25 legislation might be a confounding variable. In my youth, your word was your bond as far as pub landlords were concerned. If you said “I’m 18” without your voice squeaking then it was ok. If you failed then you walked to the next pub. Obviously would choose a town with lots of pubs in walking distance as failure rate was quite high. We now have a generation who are not addicted to drinking having not formed the habit as a disaffected teenager. Brilliant analysis btw.
Good point - the difference between me and my brother was (growing up in the countryside in the Netherlands) that he was allowed to drink at the age of 16 and for me it was only at 18 with indeed stricter checks. Habit forming starts early on!
Looking forward to the follow up on Australia. My lived experience gels with what you say about community run spaces in regional towns. But I wonder how truly third space they are as they are very tribal - sometimes to the point of being somewhat exclusive. Also gentrification is rampant in regional areas as housing costs and remote work drive people from cities with the demographic change seeming to correlate to declining club memberships. In the small town where I live we tried a resilience project to connect the tribes better but it’s awfully hard to enact change in the face of structural forces (increasingly time poor people is another).
Perhaps in your travels or through your readership you’ll discover a model that works to truly provide third spaces 🤞
Agreed that Australia is different, especially in NSW. The ruin of existing pubs (& their crucial role in the music scene) by Labor Party legislation enabling forests of poker machines & other forms of gambling that wrecked them as community spaces
It seems unintuitive that isolated pubs were more likely to close down: surely, a lack of competition is good for business? Perhaps the confounder was population density, with the most densely-populated areas being less affected by the economic shocks from the financial crisis, Brexit and COVID, as being in weekend destination drinking locations meant these pubs were always the most profitable.
There are many confounders worth further investigating:) I'm using the most predictive factor explaining most of the r^2 with all the downsides of doing this.
It's not about the pub and drinking though - it's about the third space/community building element. Do note that I do not or maybe once a month have a drink myself.
This is one of the most informative pieces I’ve had the pleasure of reading on here, Lauren. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
I’ve felt my town changing but it’s still shocking to see the evidence confirming that the "texture" of my neighbourhood is being altered. Your work is fascinating because it strips away the "cultural" excuses we often hear and exposes the hard-hitting spatial mathematics of it all.
You’ve essentially proven that a pub’s survival is less about the quality of its Sunday roast and more about its proximity to a "neighbour" to help break its isolation.
I’m really pleased to have found your work. I’ve subscribed and look forward to reading more. I would love for you to do the same, if my writing resonates with you.
You're very welcome. Keep up the great work! If you'd ever be open to a data-driven, cultural commentary collaboration let me know. Some fascinating topics we could tap into.
Hi Im a food and drink writer and CAMRA member and I have already scared this with so many people. The conclusion is frightening. Would love to discuss this with you
This is a fantastic assessment, but it could be further explored by looking at the public information available around debts etc. to potentially establish which pubs were just poorly run. I have spent some time working in the brewing industry and the lack of business acumen within that was sometimes astounding. I appreciate this is difficult to ascertain but must be a contributor.
I also once worked in a pub that needed reviving in no small part because the landlord sunk into alcoholism, which is also a real, sad risk for publicans.
If there is some statistical evidence that suggests that some of these places failed because the owners just couldn't adequately run the business, you could add some sort of public support for these people to right their finances, potentially access debt management incentives, or a way for local investors (not-PE companies) to come in and take over a failing establishment.
This is excellent. We have been saying this for years in Northern Ireland. Our licensing system means that over the last 30 years, pub licenses have been sold off to supermarkets and off-sales, while the 'surrender principle' means no new licenses for pubs come into the market EVER!. In the last 10 years, of 132 pub licenses, 100 went to off-sales. In the last 30 years, only one 'new' license has been introduced to Belfast.
We are now taking our government to court because of this - https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/whats-on/arts-culture-news/free-night-begin-legal-action-33404117
You can find our research here, and it would be great if you could map NI - https://static1.squarespace.com/static/60ba08f042d4b927cb8ac95c/t/6373c21934f0dd37f6695ffd/1668530714212/FTN-Licensing+Launch-web.pdf
Thanks a lot! This research report looks great and I'll be keeping an eye on the court case!
As a journalist myself doing a deep dive into pubs, I can say that this (while missing a lot, which isn’t a criticism) is a really excellent post, adding real value. A geek who writes brilliantly, has an interest in humans, and thinks about what stuff means. Hats off.
Thanks so much, I really appreciate it:)
Come talk to us. We are a group of mostly volunteers running a pub after our landlord was ill.
This is an incredible piece of work, which builds on long standing campaigning by people like Mark Dodds, who've been highlighting the PE model as the root cause of (and who received an awful lot of push back from people in an around the pub and beer sector who looked on that as far too conspiratorially minded on his part). It explains why the decline isn't arrested, because the industry spokespersons in the British Beer and Pub Association know this very well, but their salary depends on them not knowing it, or at least not speaking about it. So, policy discussion avoids the actual cause and tinkers round the edges with weasel phrases like behaviour change and smoking bans and other factors that are contributory, to a point, but aren't doing the heavy lifting.
That said, I looked at the 'Is Your Local at Risk' and I did find it misleading only in so far as the model's predictive power relates solely to spatial dimensions. I look at the pubs in my home town - a depressed suburb of Manchester - and all of the pubs are at low risk, which given over half of them have closed in the last 15 years is strange. There used to be 3 pubs close to my parental home, and all are now closed. Every pub is in grave danger and part of that is because they can't rely on benevolent owners who will respect their place in the the fabric of community life, but because its a place where the decline of a certain type of pub is being driven not be gentrification pushing it out but because there were in truth too many pubs, built for a older age in which social drinking for all ages was just much more common; you'd need a pub every 500 metres to accommodate the demand. But this town is basically dying. In 15 years, the Manchester gentrification will reach it and its needs will change, but right now, there's low numbers of people in work, cheap supermarket booze and a community fundamentally transformed out of the collective experience that shaped their parents and grandparents social lives.
Thanks a lot! And I totally agree with your comments - this model is a huge simplification of reality focusing only one the most predictive factor which is caused and correlated with many many more factors which would make a more complete model.
Mightily depressing though this is, thank God somebody is actually doing the analysis! Interesting though to see how some 'vulnerable' pubs seem very lively in real life: like the Greyhound in Bessels Leigh, which was absolutely packed yesterday (though it may well be much quieter on other days).
In my rural community there does seem to be a healthy ecosystem of pubs (though the expensive gastropubs which might just as much be classified as restaurants seem to be prospering more than the traditional locals), even though many of them appear as red or amber. Do you think there's some adjustment which needs to be made for localities where driving distance is more significant than walking distance? Pubs crawls are off the table, of course, but the competitive incentives between pubs exists nonetheless.
Moreover - you've probably come across it already - this has reminded me of a really interesting report from Create Streets called "Brewing Communities", on the role that pubs play in new communities. I'm determined that my pub-starved rural village should one day have a pub (or even just a cafe!) to cater to its now almost 4,000 people, but starting one up seems like a challenge on a whole different level given the tax and planning obstacles. Here's the report - https://www.createstreets.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/BrewingCommunities_Online.pdf
Can't wait to read what you write next!
Thanks for sharing this report! I think many nuances are possible to what I mapped, starting indeed with transportation links, driving distance or accessibility in general. Hope I can incorporate this in future editions.
This was very interesting. How the model performed over a much longer time series might be suggestive: one issue with analysing pub decline in Britain is when you think you should start measuring it from. But my main comment was on this:
"Australia's social infrastructure runs on not-for-profit clubs such as RSLs, surf lifesaving clubs, bowls clubs and leagues clubs, all member-owned, community-governed, and structured so that profits stay local. It's essentially the co-op model that Britain is only now discovering, except Australia built thousands of them."
Actually, Britain developed this model in the 19th century at the same time that it was greatly expanding pubs. Many were grouped together under the Club & Institute Union (CIU) umbrella.
I agree that re-invigorating this model needs to be part of the future, but the fact that social clubs have also seen a decline since 1990s, in both membership and clubs, suggests that the Putnam 'Bowling Alone' explanation might be the stronger one over the long term.
Thanks a lot! This is a great comment and I'll certainly do some more digging into this in the future.
The challenge 25 legislation might be a confounding variable. In my youth, your word was your bond as far as pub landlords were concerned. If you said “I’m 18” without your voice squeaking then it was ok. If you failed then you walked to the next pub. Obviously would choose a town with lots of pubs in walking distance as failure rate was quite high. We now have a generation who are not addicted to drinking having not formed the habit as a disaffected teenager. Brilliant analysis btw.
Good point - the difference between me and my brother was (growing up in the countryside in the Netherlands) that he was allowed to drink at the age of 16 and for me it was only at 18 with indeed stricter checks. Habit forming starts early on!
Could you supply the pub crawl list please?
Don't have the exact details anymore - but this is one I made previously taking me from Spitalfields all the way to Soho! https://gorgeous-selkie-a79228.netlify.app/
Looking forward to the follow up on Australia. My lived experience gels with what you say about community run spaces in regional towns. But I wonder how truly third space they are as they are very tribal - sometimes to the point of being somewhat exclusive. Also gentrification is rampant in regional areas as housing costs and remote work drive people from cities with the demographic change seeming to correlate to declining club memberships. In the small town where I live we tried a resilience project to connect the tribes better but it’s awfully hard to enact change in the face of structural forces (increasingly time poor people is another).
Perhaps in your travels or through your readership you’ll discover a model that works to truly provide third spaces 🤞
Thanks a lot - it's an ongoing discovery journey, so I'd love to hear any feedback and anecdotes!
Agreed that Australia is different, especially in NSW. The ruin of existing pubs (& their crucial role in the music scene) by Labor Party legislation enabling forests of poker machines & other forms of gambling that wrecked them as community spaces
It seems unintuitive that isolated pubs were more likely to close down: surely, a lack of competition is good for business? Perhaps the confounder was population density, with the most densely-populated areas being less affected by the economic shocks from the financial crisis, Brexit and COVID, as being in weekend destination drinking locations meant these pubs were always the most profitable.
There are many confounders worth further investigating:) I'm using the most predictive factor explaining most of the r^2 with all the downsides of doing this.
I find it a bit strange to be upset about a known drug dealer being shut down.
No judgement though. Each to their own, I suppose.
It's not about the pub and drinking though - it's about the third space/community building element. Do note that I do not or maybe once a month have a drink myself.
You are of course quite correct.
Don't mind me, I'm just being a grumpy contrarian :-)
Haha next up how the alcohol and gambling industries make keep themselves relevant while being known drug dealers;)
Lauren, congratulations, this is an excellent piece of work and uses the data to nail down bits of the story we all felt but couldn't quantify.
This is one of the most informative pieces I’ve had the pleasure of reading on here, Lauren. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
I’ve felt my town changing but it’s still shocking to see the evidence confirming that the "texture" of my neighbourhood is being altered. Your work is fascinating because it strips away the "cultural" excuses we often hear and exposes the hard-hitting spatial mathematics of it all.
You’ve essentially proven that a pub’s survival is less about the quality of its Sunday roast and more about its proximity to a "neighbour" to help break its isolation.
I’m really pleased to have found your work. I’ve subscribed and look forward to reading more. I would love for you to do the same, if my writing resonates with you.
Thanks a lot George - really appreciate it!
You're very welcome. Keep up the great work! If you'd ever be open to a data-driven, cultural commentary collaboration let me know. Some fascinating topics we could tap into.
Hi Im a food and drink writer and CAMRA member and I have already scared this with so many people. The conclusion is frightening. Would love to discuss this with you
This is a fantastic assessment, but it could be further explored by looking at the public information available around debts etc. to potentially establish which pubs were just poorly run. I have spent some time working in the brewing industry and the lack of business acumen within that was sometimes astounding. I appreciate this is difficult to ascertain but must be a contributor.
I also once worked in a pub that needed reviving in no small part because the landlord sunk into alcoholism, which is also a real, sad risk for publicans.
If there is some statistical evidence that suggests that some of these places failed because the owners just couldn't adequately run the business, you could add some sort of public support for these people to right their finances, potentially access debt management incentives, or a way for local investors (not-PE companies) to come in and take over a failing establishment.
Future research!
This is incredible work! How long did this project take you from start to finish?
Thanks a lot! A good evening of data work and then a day or two to create the narrative and story. Love writing these posts in my free time!
Only one evening???
God I was already wondering what I was doing with my life the first time I read your post, now I'm not even sure what I think 🤣
This is great! I run past the Ivy House in Nunhead two to three times a week - time to go in for a pint!
Did you see the IsMyPubFucked piece of work? Reminded me of this but that was working on the damage business rates were doing to pubs.
Thanks:) I love a pub or coffee visit after a good run. I just came across the IsMyPubFucked, really cool!