Fair Pint: 'Five pubs fail every day'

Anti-beer tie group Fair Pint believes the failure rate of pubs may be as high as five per day.

Recent figures from the British Beer & Pub Association revealed that 25 pubs are currently closing every week, while accountancy firm Wilkins Kennedy said that one bar or pub a day shut down in 2010 as a result of company failures.

But Fair Pint believes neither analysis takes the failure rate, or so-called "churn", of pub tenants into account.

Further evidence from the Insolvency Service revealed that more than 400 sole traders operating pubs and bars also went bust in 2010.

The group believes the pubco churn rate, based on the number of current vacancies, is between 12% and 15%. "The level of failure, particularly among tied tenants of the main pubcos, is totally unacceptable," said Simon Clarke of the Fair Pint Campaign.

"Including our estimates of churn among pub company tenants, the rate of failure could be as high as five per day, which dwarves other estimates claiming a closure rate only of 25 pubs per week, which is worrying enough.

"The continued abuse of beer-tie arrangements by pubcos and some brewers is leading to unsustainable rents and wholesale pricing that is costing the industry dearly, leading to the loss of jobs and community assets.

"Part of the answer is for the Government to insist on a free-of-tie option for all tied tenants and for the exercise of that option to be accompanied by an open-market rent review properly utilising the new RICS [Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors] guidelines.

"That action will help to slow the rate of closures by promoting real competition, better wholesale pricing and realistic rental levels."