Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Reaching for the revolver

A classic quotation here from Jonathan Neame, Chief Executive of Shepherd Neame:

For other industries the government “reached for the chequebook”, but for pubs, Labour “reached for the revolver”.
He warns that the rate of pub closures, far from abating, is likely to accelerate. On current trends, 25% of the existing pub stock could be lost, taking us down from the current figure of about 58,000 pubs nationwide to little over 40,000. That would not surprise me in the slightest.