'Village life - and pubs - dying at an alarming rate'

Campaigners say traditional village life is "dying out" after it was revealed that almost 900 country pubs were forced to close last year. Other key services such as village shops, post offices and schools are disappearing from village life "at an alarming rate", said the National Housing Federation. About 400 village shops closed in 2008 while rural schools shut down at the rate of one a month in England between 1997 and 2008, said the organisation - which represents England's housing associations. Part of the problem, say campaigners, includes second-homers and 'theme weekenders' who don't live in such communities Monday to Friday and who fail to become a part of village life. - Independent​

Britain is to get an unconventional new opera house - the first to open in London for 40 years - when the King's Head, the Islington pub and the capital's first and most famous fringe venue, turns permanently to musical theatre next month under the guidance of illustrious patrons Jonathan Miller, Joanna Lumley, Alan Parker, Tom Stoppard and leading West End actress Janie Dee. - Guardian​

The new landlord of a notorious Edinburgh pub told how he reclaimed it for the community after the notorious drug gang who made it their base was finally locked up. A massive undercover police operation helped jail James Carlin, 24, and eight others who used the Jock's Lodge pub in Piershill as their "gang hut". It was eventually closed down after ex-boxer Carlin was shot in the leg and stabbed by two rivals in March this year. Neighbours had described the pub as often resembling the "Wild West". But since reopening in June, new licensee Alan Shand believes the bar has turned a corner and has seen locals returning through the doors. Shand has some pedigree as a "pub troubleshooter" having successfully cleaned up the Half Way House in Leith in the 1990s before relaunching it as a friendly community bar. - Scotsman​