The Guv'nor Alan Hamblett

Lower duty so people can afford pubs again

Pubs are places to relax, socialise and be entertained;

a communal and healthy alternative to rotting in front of the telly or making "friends" on social networking websites.

Village pubs in particular have always been at the centre of the community and have helped the notion of such a thing stay alive in spite of the many 21st-century distractions that conspire to destroy it.

Pubs are licensed, controlled environments, geared towards the social consumption of alcohol. They are not centres for binge-drinkers and alcoholics.

A visit to the pub was once something the average person could afford regularly. It's now largely an occasional pleasure, far too often being rejected altogether in favour of supermarket alcohol at a third of

the price.

Camra has asked for a 1p reduction in duty. Sorry, but I don't see how that would help.

Every pub closure causes damage to local economies, not only costing the jobs of the management and staff (600,000 people and falling in the UK), but

also diminishing returns for suppliers of food

and drink, games machines, cleaners, maintenance workers and entertainers.

It is acceptable that a pub is more expensive than an off-licence, but over the last 15 years the enormous buying power of the supermarkets has rendered the discrepancy between the two untenable.

Supermarkets can afford to sell cheap alcohol, but can't monitor its consumption. Meanwhile, licensed controlled premises close down every day because they can't afford to lower their prices.

The result is needless social and economic damage.

Duty per pint: France, 5p; Germany, 4p; UK, 35p, plus the VAT of course... The Government could transfer this tax burden to off-licence sales, thus diminishing the scope

for supermarket price manipulation and increasing the viability

of pubs.

Alternatively, perhaps supermarkets should

not be allowed to sell alcohol at all.

They would appear to have no proper facility to monitor it or to acknowledge the wider consequences of their rock-bottom prices.

Please sign the Morning Advertiser petition at

this address or look out for the hard copy letter that's currently doing

the rounds in pubs all over the country, or

both. http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/taxonalcohol.